In December 2020, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, in cooperation with the Ville de Montréal, launched a pilot project to support artists and artist collectives with the development of artist studios. This initiative will provide visual arts and craft arts collectives with assistance from technical resource groups (TRGs1) for a four-month period.
Here are the four selected projects:
Les Ateliers Belleville will receive assistance from the Bâtir son quartier TRG to work on a growth and expansion project.
Les Ateliers Belleville is a social and artistic hub of research and creation. Its mission is to promote the growth and development of independent artistic practices and to provide independent artists and artisans with affordable studio space along with dedicated tools and resources. It also seeks to help develop resources and processes that facilitate and encourage access to collective artist studio spaces.
Daphne Artcentre will be assisted by the ROMEL (Regroupement des organismes du Montréal ethnique pour le logement) TRG to plan a long-term real-estate project that includes artist studios.
Daphne is the first Indigenous-run contemporary artists’ centre in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal. Its mission is to provide spaces for Native visual artists at every stage of their career, to encourage their artistic practices and to foster a culture of peace through essential and respectful dialogue with Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the public.
The Coopérative de femmes artistes et artisanes will work with the Atelier habitation Montréal TRG to launch a building project to include artist studios and shared spaces.
The young collective brings together Montreal artists and artisans from a wide range of artistic disciplines who share an interest in promoting the talent and expertise of women in the community. The Cooperative is the result of their desire to come together and pool their experience, knowledge and resources in a single space that is exclusively dedicated to their burgeoning creativity.
Espace de création pour les artistes autochtones will receive support for its new project from Groupe CDH (Conseil en développement de l’habitation).
Spearheaded by Ondinnok Productions and the Indigenous Curatorial Collective (IC-CA), this project seeks to develop accessible, affordable and well-equipped spaces for artistic creation that are geared to the many needs of Montreal’s Indigenous communities. It also offers a residency program able to host Native artists from here and elsewhere.
To learn more about the pilot project and efforts to ensure the long-term viability of artist studios in Montreal, please click here.
1 TRGs are social economy enterprises dedicated to the development of community housing. These enterprises are specialized in providing guidance to organizations and citizen groups that coordinate projects, and act as intermediaries between stakeholders. They also facilitate the creation and implementation of socially and economically viable housing projects. These groups are recognized partners of the Société d’habitation du Québec and the City of Montréal in the implementation of the AccèsLogis Québec Program.
