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Foundation Mentorship Program 2020/2021

2019 / 2020 Foundation Mentorship Program group, September 2019

  • Application Deadline
    Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 4:00pm
  • September 2020 – August 2021

Call for submissions

Year-Long Mentorship Program, Sept 2020 – Sept 2021
Application deadline: Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at 4pm
For all women and non-binary visual artists.

In the event that social distancing continues into the fall, MAWA will adjust the program to ensure participants' health and safety is maintained.

The Foundation Mentorship Program (FMP) has been the core of MAWA’s programming activities since 1985. Artists who have gone through the FMP describe it as having been “pivotal,” “transformative” and “life changing.” It is designed to help women and non-binary people in the visual arts develop skills and define their decision-making philosophies by providing information, resources and support. It is a year-long program in which established artists (mentors) meet individually with their mentees for 4 hours per month to share their experience, expertise and advice. The entire FMP group meets for 3 hours each month for critiques, discussion, gallery visits and other activities.

Applicants are selected based on the quality and potential of the artwork submitted, the emerging artist’s willingness to dedicate time to the program, and the mentor’s ability to work with the emerging artist through a shared medium or conceptual interest. Mentors choose their mentees.

Potential mentees of all adult ages and backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Successful applicants will be charged $300 for the program. There is no fee to apply, although you must be a MAWA member. Students are not eligible.

If you have applied before and were unsuccessful, consider revisiting your application and the quality of your images and applying again. Note that demand for this program far outstrips available spaces. Sometimes the mentors agree that an artist’s work is excellent, but they do not feel that they have the specific skills or experience to help that artist. Another year, another mentor might select you.

To apply for the Foundation Mentorship Program:

Please email a single pdf document labelled with your name and FMP (i.e., Sarah Wong FMP). The pdf should contain:

  • a letter outlining why you want to participate in this program and what you hope to achieve through mentorship (make sure the letter also includes information regarding how we can contact you by phone, email and post). Please also describe your artistic practice (if English is not your first language and you would like to apply verbally, please call the office and we can make accommodations
  • an artist résumé (maximum 3 pages)
  • up to 20 embedded jpg images of your artwork captioned with the title of the work, the media, date completed and dimensions, or links to up to 3 minutes of video

If you are not already a member, please also submit a MAWA membership form and payment. MAWA memberships cost $15 for underwaged persons and $30 for others. Email applications to [email protected] and put “FMP Application 2020” in the subject line.

For all programs at MAWA, if finances are a barrier to participation, please speak with MAWA staff.

The 2020 -2021 Mentors

MAWA mentors are respected artists and curators. They are connected to the art world. They are willing to share information and skills. They are committed to building community. We are pleased to announce that the following artists will each select two mentees to work with in the upcoming year:

  • Nasrin Himada is a Palestinian writer and curator. They are interested in articulating personal, experiential and embodied forms of knowledge, and exploring the ways in which art can be a catalyst in constituting a radical, intimate and poetic ecology that enacts transformation. Instead of talking or writing about artwork as a way to analyze, explain or interpret, art criticism and curation can engage with art as relation rather than representation. Their writing on contemporary art has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, Critical Signals, The Funambulist, Fuse and MICE, among others. They have collaborated with film festivals and art institutions across Canada and the US, among them the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain, and Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. Himada is the Curator at Plug In ICA in Winnipeg.

    Photo by Pascha Marrow

  • Andrea Oliver Roberts is a multidisciplinary artist whose sound, installation and print works contend with technology, identity and ways of knowing within capitalism. Roberts has shown at galleries and festivals internationally, with recent presentations at send + receive 2019, Plug In ICA STAGES biennial 2019 and The Auxiliary, UK. Roberts writes on issues of sound, gender and technology, and performs with their solo experimental electronic project VOR. A recent artist in residence at Miami’s Oolite Arts and Brooklyn’s Pioneerworks, Roberts holds an MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts.

  • Suzie Smith works with printmaking and design that expands into sculpture, installation and moving image. Her work often incorporates the deconstruction and transformation of objects and materials to create new or multiple meanings. Smith creates systems and structures for her process that act as a tool to build, take apart and push against.

  • Tricia Wasney is a multidisciplinary artist and writer whose education and experience include visual art, craft, film, landscape architecture and public art. Her jewellery-based artwork explores history, the unreliability of memory, air, the landscape and implications of climate change. She is currently collaborating with artist Doug Melynk on a book about the secret life of a cat that investigates anxiety, gender fluidity, community and belonging. As an arts administrator, Tricia developed Winnipeg’s Public Art Program through the Winnipeg Arts Council, where she facilitated a range of projects from intimate community collaborations to large-scale international commissions.