The following are the questions to be submitted to be considered for the 2025 Tactile 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.
- This is a required question.
- 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. If you’d prefer someone to call you, we will get another staff member to call or use a video call service!
- This is a required question.
Identity Questions:
- This engagement program is limited to artists, makers, and knowledge keepers who are non-visual, and have a tactile practice. Non-visual includes Blind, low-vision, or Partially-sighted identities but is not exclusive. 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. We also acknowledge that Blindness, Non-Visual Identity or Visual Acuity is a wide spectrum. Tell us how you identify yourself and what you need to move through the world with confidence and respect.
- This is a required question.
- Are you a member of MST (Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil Waututh) host nations and families?
- This program, and all programs at grunt gallery whose building is on stolen Indigenous Territory, will always prioritize applications from the host nations who have stewarded and continue to protect the lands and water here.
- If you are an Urban Indigenous settler, you are also given space to identify as such in the application.
- This question does not require an answer.
- 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! - This question does not require an answer.
- 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.
- 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)!
- This is not a required question.
- This is not a required question.
- 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.
- This is a required question.
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.
- This is a required question.
- 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!
- This is a required question.
- 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?
- This is a required question.
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.
- Don’t worry if you don’t have a professional CV. We can help you build one during the engagement program, as it’s a pretty important document to have in your art career.
- This is not a required document, but we do strongly recommend you send us something.
- 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.
- If you’re struggling to send us files, you can send us a list of links to view your works online. Links to Dropbox, Google Drive, or other cloud services are fine as long as we have viewer access.
Application Options:
- Google Forms
- Download Plain Text Version
- Email aep@grunt.ca
Return to the Tactile Co-Learning Engagement Information Page
Return to the Accessible Engagement Project Page
