Application deadline: October 10, 2025
To support advanced research that reexamines the spectrum of interactions between photography, architecture, and our photographic holdings, we are launching a new initiative for 2026: the CCA Photography Research Fellowship Program.
The CCA holds one of the most significant photography collections in North America. Founded in 1974, before the formal establishment of the CCA, the collection has been integral to the development of new understandings of the relationship between photography and architecture and to establishing this relationship as a distinct field of visual and historical scholarship. It is rich in names and images canonized in traditional histories of photography as well as in unpublished works and series by understudied or unidentified photographers. The collection’s roughly 65,000 photographs document their subjects—buildings and building sites, infrastructure works, archeological sites, built environments and their inhabitants, landscapes, architectural details—but also, crucially, reveal the subjectivities of their photographers and the historical conditions in which they worked. While the subjects and photographers represented are mainly Western, the collection includes thousands of photographs made across Asia, in North Africa, and elsewhere, primarily in the context of nineteenth-century European and British expansionist aspirations and colonial rule.
For the CCA Photography Research Fellowship’s inaugural year, we seek applications from researchers investigating any aspect of nineteenth-century photography—the most substantive part of the collection—as it intersects with the natural and built environment. We are particularly interested in the role of photography in visual and architectural culture, especially in relation to evolving technologies; the relationship between photography and the environment; and the functions of photographs in imperialist frameworks. Proposals may address materials held in our archives and library as well as our photography collection. Photographs in a variety of formats can be found across all three of these collection areas.
We welcome applications from photographers and artists with a research-driven practice, researchers from all disciplines whose current projects are oriented specifically toward photography, and historians of photography and image making. This program builds on The Lives of Documents—Photography as Project, which was the first of a projected trilogy of research and exhibition projects exploring the medium of photography as a means to investigate the built environment.
Photography Fellows are offered a residency at the CCA between June and August for a period of one to two months, with the goal of creating a community of researchers on site, particularly alongside our Research Fellowship Program, Indigenous-led Design Fellowship Program, and Doctoral Research Residency Program. Each Fellow will receive a monthly stipend of CAD 5,000, as well as additional financial support for travel expenses. Based on the scope of the proposed research project, the CCA’s curatorial committee will determine the duration of the residency in discussion with each candidate to best support their project. In addition to a public presentation of their work in progress, Photography Fellows are expected to participate in discussions, seminars, and workshops organized at the CCA, exchange with CCA staff, and engage with the local academic, artistic, and architectural community.
To apply and consult detailed guidelines and terms, visit the Photography Research Fellowship Program. The application deadline is October 10, 2025.
Applicants whose proposals centre photography as a central question of inquiry should apply exclusively to the Photography Fellowship Program. All other proposals that address visual media as forms of historical evidence and exploration should apply to the CCA Research Fellowship Program, by October 10, 2025. The CCA’s Research Fellowship Program supports innovative, advanced research to foster new kinds of intellectual exchange that spark long-term dialogue and debate. To apply and consult detailed guidelines and terms, visit our Research Fellowship Program
For questions regarding the programs, contact studium@cca.qc.ca. To hear from us and about upcoming research and curatorial opportunities, subscribe to our newsletter.
