Local Arts Residency

Artists-in-residence will receive:   

• In-kind use of a professional workspace featuring state-of-the-art equipment in the Baby Grand, a black box theatre, for a duration of five days.
• Access to the space.
  • Monday through Friday within the residency period during standard operating hours (9 a.m. - 5 p.m.). We assess requests for access to the space outside these hours case-by-case.
• Professional support in technical production to aid in the development of the artist’s creative practice.   
• Promotional support for public artist talk, community workshop, etc.
• Documentation from the residencies for promotional use. 
• Funding support through an honourarium of $1,000 for artistic expenses.  

Successful candidates will work with City of Kingston staff to determine a five-day residency based on the following weeks: 

• July 7 - 11
• July 14 - 18
• July 21 - 25
• July 28 - August 1

• Applicants must have a City of Kingston mailing address and must already be promoting themselves as a Kingston-area artist.
• Applicants must be *emerging or mid-career professional performing artists working in theatre, dance, music, circus, comedy or inter-disciplinary practices.  
• Applicants must be individual artists or collaborative duos/teams/small ensembles under the leadership of a single applicant.   
• Only one application per artist or collective. Applicants may not apply as an individual AND be part of a simultaneous collective application.  
• If you participated in a previous Local Arts Residency as the lead artist-in-residence, you are not eligible to apply in 2025. If you collaborated on a previous Residency, you are eligible to apply.

Note: The City defines an emerging or mid-career professional performing artist as someone who has developed their skills through training and/or practice; is recognized as such by artists and/or peers working in the same artistic discipline; actively practices their art; seeks remuneration for their work; and has a history of public presentation.   

A selection committee of past Artists-in-Residence will review applications and evaluate them to select four artists or collectives for the 2025 residency program based on criteria outlined below.

• Artistic Merit – the application reflects artistic quality based on the artist/collective’s body of work.
• Artistic Practice – the artist/collective demonstrates a commitment to their discipline.
• Diversity – we consider and represent applications from all communities and performing arts disciplines. We also encourage integration across performing arts disciplines.   
• Community – the application reflects a commitment to facilitate community access to the artist/collective's work (willingness to facilitate a public artist talk, community workshop, etc.).

• Application opens: Tuesday, March 18, 2025.
• Deadline to apply: Tuesday, April 15, 2025 by 5 p.m.
• Review period: April 17 – May 15, 2025.