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Non-Verbal Artist Co-Learning Engagement – Annotated Application Form 2025

The following are the questions to be submitted to be considered for the 2025 Non-Verbal Co-Learning Engagement. The questions below include tips and expanded information to help you better understand what we are asking. The questions without annotation are available for download in Plain Text (email aep@grunt.ca), or on Google Forms.

  • Name:
    • You can provide us with your birth name, your chosen name, or your artist name. Only selected engagement artists will need to provide us with a legal name for the sake of contracts.
  • Email or Phone:
    • Provide both or either. The program facilitators are both hard of hearing and don’t talk on the phone, but can send texts.

Identity Questions:

  • This engagement is limited to artists, makers, and knowledge keepers who are non-verbal, are deaf or hard of hearing, have a non-verbal or silent practice, or are Deaf or Hard of Hearing with a non-verbal practice. Tell us how you self-identify.
    • Self-identification means you tell us how you identify, and we do not require a doctor’s note. You know yourself and your access needs.
  • Are you a member of MST (Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil Waututh) host nations and families?
  • Are you a person of racialized experience?
    • Using “racialized” instead of BIPOC refers to people or groups who are socially defined as belonging to a racial category other than the dominant or privileged group in a specific society. In colonially-defined Canada, this typically means anyone who is not white. While we, as an arts community, aim to prioritize and uplift Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (settler and otherwise), using terms like BIPOC can unintentionally homogenize diverse identities and erase specific cultural and racial experiences.

      By using “racialized,” we focus on the processes and impacts of systemic racism without flattening the diversity of experiences across racial and ethnic groups. If you prefer to identify as BIPOC or with a specific racial or cultural group, we welcome you to let us know. Similarly, if you identify with the term “racialized,” please feel free to share that with us!
  • Do you identify as Trans, Queer, Deaf/deaf/hard of hearing, neurodiverse, mad, or otherwise excellent? Tell us about your intersectional identity (if you want)!
  • Which city or territory do you live in within the colonially defined province of BC?
    • You must live within the Greater Vancouver Regional District when you apply. Our funding is provided by the province of British Columbia and this engagement program is limited to be people living within Metro Vancouver.

Artist Questions:

  • Tell us about yourself. (250 word limit)
    • The next two questions ask about your art practice and what you plan to do during the engagement period – this question is more about who you are as a artist. Tell us what is important to you, what you’re proud of or what you aspired to do as an artist.
  • How does non-verbal communication, De’VIA, or silence show up in your practice and work? Why do you explore silence, non-verbal communication or De’VIA? (250 word limit)
    • Tell us about your non-verbal or silence practice! How does non-verbal communication such as movement, light, illustration, text, signing, or other non-verbal practices show up in your art? Tell us about your process and methods!
  • What would you like to explore during the 6-week engagement if you were to participate? (250 word limit)
    • While you do not have to produce anything for grunt gallery, except for the deliverables listed on the Non-Verbal Co-Learning Engagement Page, we hope that you will get a chance to work on your on-going or on new projects while you’re engaged as an artist with grunt. If you do not have any specific plans to make or create during the engagement, what do you hope to share or learn with grunt during the 6-weeks?

Support Materials

  • Please attach your CV (1 page).
    • Your CV is documentation of your creative and professional achievements within the arts. Please focus on exhibitions, residencies and grants, publications, commissions and collaborations, collections and creative work. It can include academic history if you want, but we are more interested in your artistic career or artistic achievements. Don’t worry if it’s short – just focus on relevant information that you are proud of. If it’s really long, consider focusing on achievements that are connected to your non-verbal practice.
  • Please attach support materials (maximum of 10 images, 5 minutes of video or audio, and seven pages of written materials at 14 pt or higher). If support materials are supplied in languages besides English, please indicate the language in the file name or your application comments.
    • Send us video, pictures or writing that shows you engaged in your non-verbal practice or works you have produced during your non-verbal practice. If any of the work is sensitive or explores challenging themes – please consider the people reading your application and provide content warnings.

Application Options:


Return to the Non-Verbal Co-Learning Engagement Information Page
Return to the Accessible Engagement Project Page

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Staff: Shanna Cheng

Title: Co-Lead of Accessible Engagement Project (AEP)
Pronouns: she/her
Email: shanna@grunt.ca
Ask them about: Accessible Engagement Project (AEP)

Name Pronunciation: Shah – nah

Biography

Shanna is a Curator bringing in experience collaborating with disadvantaged youths, emerging BIPOC artists and the Disability community in disability and BIPOC led community projects and exhibitions. She continues to work with artists with disabilities in consultation and developing transformative critical models in art spaces, expanding on inclusive curation, exhibition accessibility design, artist residencies and public programming.

She approaches projects through the disability justice lens of comfort and care practices, supporting the professional development and ongoing learning with, for and by artists with disabilities. Shanna is a Canadian-Chinese Hard of Hearing Curator, Project Coordinator and Printmaker.

Contact Information

Email: shanna@grunt.ca
Shanna is Hard of Hearing and lipreads to communicate. She responds best through email and text messaging platforms. She is an oral speaker and will speak first to communicate. Feel free to send a quick email and/or text at shanna@grunt.ca.

Visual Description

Image Description: Shanna beams at the camera wearing a pale blue silky dress with a soft cardigan overtop. She wears her long dark hair down with blunt bangs falling across her forehead. Shanna is surrounded by large bright pink and orange obscure sculptures and paintings lining the black gallery walls.

She is small in stature, and you will find her wearing earthly-toned cozy outfits with a bounce in her small steps.

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Staff: Kay Slater

Title: Exhibitions and Accessibility Manager
Co-Lead: Accessible Engagement Project with Shanna Cheng
Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs
Email: kay@grunt.ca
Ask them about: Exhibitions, Access, Thursday’s Voice-Off and Low Sensory Visiting Hours, AEP, their cat Bobo.

Name Pronunciation: K (like the English letter K) Slay-tehr

Biography

Video description: Kay signs their bio wearing a black mock turtle-neck shirt in front of a black background. For a full visual description of Kay, scroll down the page.

Kay Slater (Exhibitions and Accessibility Manager) is a multidisciplinary artist, creative access practitioner, accessibility consultant, exhibition designer, and arts worker. At grunt gallery, they work to plan and build exhibitions alongside our exhibiting artists as a preparator with more than 10 years of experience. They are co-lead on the Accessible Engagement Project (AEP), and chair the grunt accessibility committee.

They enjoy working directly with artists and organizations to build accessibility in at the planning stage, and to incorporate sustainable, grass roots strategies that support evolution in artistic presentation. Their work is rooted in anti-oppression practices, and they employ open source and community-engaged approaches to support ongoing knowledge transfer with makers and creators at all stages of their careers. They proudly work with the team at Queer ASL, and have completed the Rick Hansen Foundation’s Accessibility Certification program. Kay is passionate about sharing knowledge with the wider arts community, addressing assumptions, and embracing mistakes. Kay is a white european descendant and settler and is working to unlearn, relearn, and practice staying in their lane.

Kay is queer, mad and hard of hearing. They subscribe to the New Sincerity philosophy, which encourages people to embrace love and authenticity and to be more awesome.

Contact Information

Email: kay@grunt.ca
Kay is hard of hearing and cannot hear on the phone. Voice messages by email are fine as they will use a caption tool or email you for more information. You can also call the gallery,  604–875–9516, and leave a message. Kay is a sometimes oral speaker, choosing to go non-verbal during special projects, to respect Deaf spaces, and to respect their own hearing fatigue. They lipread, use live captions, and text message to communmicate.

Visual Description

Kay is a white, middle-aged person with back-length hair the colour of wet West Coast sand. Their hair is shaved at the sides and back, and they often wear it up and away from their face. They have cow-brown eyes, a triple-pierced nose, double-pierced lip, and large, rosy cheeks. They have a yellowed, tea-stained, teeth-exposing smile that crinkles the corner of their eyes. They are of average to large build and stand 5’6 or 168 cm. Their figure reads as femme, and their clothing is neutral and casual in colour, fabric and style. Kay’s typically fingerspells their name in a quick cursive K-A-Y.

Image Description: Kay’s hair is pulled back with short hairs coming out of a bun above their shaved sides. They wear oversized plastic glasses and a face mask with a plastic visor that allows for lip reading.

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