Over 2024, we’ve witnessed an increasing pressure to prioritize consumption and marketability in the arts. Artists are expected to monetize their work through consumption-centred production or digital platforms that fail to capture the depth of their practices. With significant reductions in arts funding, particularly from arts councils and other public funding bodies, artists are met with the challenge to seek new ways to sustain their work without compromising their values.

We are looking for prototypers to research and develop new models in artists’ financial sustainability and design new pathways for artistic works that don’t fit conventional marketplace frameworks to be showcased and monetized.

How do we create systems that value materials, craft, and storytelling? How do we centre place, relationships, and a sense of wonder in how we create and share art?

We want to reimagine the act of buying material goods or paying for an experience as something less transactional and more relational. Inspired by the aesthetics of fairytales and the sense of magical realism they evoke, we aim to transform the marketplace into a space of wonder. Through digitally mediated narratives, spatial interventions that "occupies the ruins", and artistic practices that defy conventional marketplace formats, we’ll explore how to create a critical approach to productization and monetization in the arts—a place to reflect on both desire and its consequences. Our goal is to shift the focus from mere exchange to interactions that feel alive, deepening the relationship between artists and their audiences.

This initiative invites artists as prototypers to join a working group that explores experimental, place-based approaches to creating and sharing art while engages in prototyping alternative modes of financial activities to sustain artistic practices.


Why:

This project is about rethinking how art is produced, shared, and monetized, challenging conventional frameworks that prioritize commercialization and hyper-commodification. By prototyping offerings—performances, crafted objects, poetry, or immersive experiences—participants will explore how their practices can resonate with audiences while reflecting their values. This initiative is an opportunity to experiment with systems of exchange that prioritize meaningful connections and embodied experiences of artistic expressions.  


As a prototyper, you will:

- Prototype and document new ways of producing and sharing your work using ecologically-conscious and place-based methods
- Seek and develop relationships with craftspeople, explore bioregional practices, and build embodies approaches that enrich digital and new media practices
- Help design a marketplace framework that challenges commodity-focused market structures while creating pathways for financial resilience
- Be in a circle of practice to give and receive peer-mentorship in creative leadership, business strategies, and product development  


This is for artists and cultural producers who: 

- Want to develop approaches different from conventional cycles of commodity production and market-driven pressures in the art world
- Are curious about embedding their digital and new media work in the context of place, material craft, and storytelling
- Have weird and peculiar practices or ideas that don’t fit neatly into standard market frameworks.  
- Are eager to experiment, collaborate, and prototype meaningful offerings that honour the integrity of their work.  
- Are available for online or in-person development sessions in February 2025 and can physically participate in cumulative events in Toronto (March) and/or Montreal (April) 2025 with their prototype.  


How to Apply:

Submit your application via the Apply Now link above. Describe your creative practice, what you’d like to prototype, and why this project speaks to you. Include links to your portfolio or relevant works if applicable.  

Application close January 6, 2025. Interviews will be scheduled on a rolling basis. Selected prototypers will be notified by January 20, 2025.

Selected prototypers will receive a $500 contribution to develop individual projects and additional resources towards materials for prototyping. Prototypers will also retain all revenue generated from their participation in events in Toronto and Montreal Spring 2025 through a profit-sharing model they shape during the prototyping process.