Banff Alberta T1L1H5
Canada
Sounding Like a Mountain
Program dates: May 17–June 18, 2027
Application deadline: November 18, 2026
This residency invites visual artists to apply with projects that consider how places sing, how memory persists in vibration and how listening to the land can re-orient ethical and political relations.
Drawing on concepts inherent to acoustic ecology and taking the mountains of Banff as inspiration, participants are invited to explore how sound activates multiple temporalities—shaped by land use, migration, ecological disruption, colonial infrastructures, and so on. The Earth can be thought of as a field of relations in which biological, geological and social processes co-create one another. Participants will reflect on ecological and ethical listening and sounding as it informs thinking, art-making and presentation.
Joining as faculty for this program are Xenia Benivolski (curator, writer; Belgium/Canada), Elina Waage Mikalsen (artist; Sápmi/Norway), and Kathryn Yusoff (geographer; England).
Embodied Making: Performance Art, Images and Objects
July 5–August 6, 2027
Apply by February 17
This program invites visual artists to think expansively about performance, and how performance emerges through movement, stillness, reading, listening, endurance, care and collective action. Further, it invites artists to investigate the ways that performance and materiality intersect, considering how images and forms are activated, transformed, and given meaning through embodied interaction.
Through individual studio-based experimentation and collective inquiry, artists will explore and create new relationships between bodies, objects, and spaces. Banff’s extraordinary landscape and natural surroundings inevitably become collaborators in the creative process, offering opportunities for site-responsive and place-based investigations.
Joining as faculty for this program are Brendan Fernandes (artist; USA/Canada), Claire Fleming Staples (artist; USA), and Abril Zales (curator; Mexico).
About Visual Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Visual Arts at Banff Centre offers exceptional programs for contemporary artists at all stages of professional practice. Our programs are led by diverse faculty at the forefront of contemporary art. Thematic residencies bring focus to ideas in contemporary art, while general Banff Artist in Residence (BAiR) programs offer opportunities for diverse ideas and approaches to be explored side-by-side. Participants are provided with generous studio spaces, access to exceptional technical facilities, and connections to a supportive visual arts community. Participants will gain insights and support towards developing and sustaining their practices.
Stay tuned for new program announcements. Sign up for our newsletter. For more information, contact: Admissions, Admissions@banffcentre.ca T 403 762 6180 / banffcentre.ca
