Foundation Mentorship Program 2023/2024

  • Application Deadline
    Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 12:00pm
  • September 2023 – August 2024

Application deadline extended to May 31!

Call for submissions

Year-Long Mentorship Program, Sept 2023 – Sept 2024
Extended deadline: Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at noon
Presented in partnership with The Winnipeg Film Group

The Foundation Mentorship Program (FMP) is a professional training program designed to help women and non-binary, trans and Two-Spirit woman-identifying people in the visual arts develop skills and define their decision-making philosophies by providing information, resources and support. In this year-long professional training program, 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. Note that each of Cecilia Araneda’s two mentees in film/media art will also receive a free Winnipeg Film Group production membership and up to $500 in Film Group gear and facility rentals.

Applicants will be 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. 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. Another year, another mentor might select you.

Potential mentees of all adult ages and backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Students are not eligible. There is no fee to apply, but successful applicants will be charged $300 for the program. If you require accommodations such as ASL for the application process or the program itself, or if finances would be a barrier to a successful application, please contact Adriana at [email protected].

To apply for the Foundation Mentorship Program, send a single PDF document labelled with your name and FMP (e.g., Sarah Wong FMP) containing:

  • a letter outlining why you want to participate in this program and what you hope to achieve through mentorship, including a description of your art practice, and information regarding how we can contact you by phone, email and post
  • an artist résumé (maximum 3 pages)
  • up to 20 embedded images of your artwork, with an image list or captions giving the title of the work, medium, date completed and dimensions; or links to up to 3 minutes of video

Email your application to [email protected] and put “FMP 2023” in the subject line. (If English is not your first language and you would like to apply verbally, please call the office and we can make accommodations.)

  • Filmmaker Cecilia Araneda came to Canada when a child as a refugee. This experience plays a large role in her body of work. Araneda’s practice is also strongly rooted in the examination of private and public memory as it connects to identity, consciously working against the idea of the fully controlled image. Araneda is additionally a nationally recognized media art curator and is a recipient of the Joan Lowndes Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts. Araneda is happy to mentor in English or in Spanish, her first language. ceciliaaraneda.ca

  • Dee Barsy (Anishinaabe-Ojibwe) is a lifelong learner, painter and visual arts educator. She is a former foster child and an adoptee of a transracial family. She is a member of Skownan First Nation. She is represented by Mayberry Fine Arts. Her work is in the collections of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Manitoba Museum and the Global Affairs Visual Art Collection, among others.

    Dee Barsy. Photo by Leif Norman.

  • Anna Binta Diallo (b. Dakar, Senegal) is a multi-disciplinary visual artist who investigates memory and nostalgia to create unexpected narratives surrounding identity. Her work has been exhibited widely in Canada and internationally (Finland, Senegal, Mali, Taiwan and Germany). In 2021, she won the Barbara Sphor Memorial Prize and received the Black Designers of Canada Award of Excellence. In 2022, she was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award. She teaches at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art. Diallo is happy to mentor in English or in French, her first language.

    Anna Binta Diallo. Photo by Rachel Topham Photography.

  • Sarah Anne Johnson uses photography as a base for manipulation, to fabricate an image that expresses not just a moment in time but the feelings she has toward the subject, through the addition of paints, re-touching inks and glitter, and the incorporation of burning, scratching and gouging. Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally and is included in museum collections. She completed her MFA at the Yale School of Art and is represented by dealers in New York, Toronto and Montreal.

    Sarah Anne Johnson, STEC (detail), inkjet with oil paint, 60” x 40”, 2020

  • Until this spring, Dr. Maureen Matthews was the Curator of Cultural Anthropology at the Manitoba Museum, where she made Indigenous collections accessible to artists. She developed beading and quillwork “skills repatriation” projects, actively creating opportunities for museum artefacts to become teachers and mentors. Her recent collaboration with local Métis artists resulted in a large multimedia piece in Storied Objects: Métis Art in Relation at Saskatoon’s Remai Modern.