Call for artists in residence anytime during August 27 to September 6, 2010
Don Blanche is a free end-of-summer residency and festival that is a unique, grass-roots platform for artists of all mediums to create, collaborate, co-habitate, and celebrate. We provide an oasis of experimentation outside the city, where artistic explorations happen indoors and outdoors, collectively and individually. We offer a one-of-a-kind fully equipped facility and open atmosphere for discussion and experimentation, mixing artists of all mediums and ages. Situated on Don Miller’s sprawling, 60-acre property near Shelburne, Ontario, (a 1.5 hour drive North of Toronto), Don Blanche residency offers indoor living quarters and studio facilities for up to 32 residents for a one-week period, culminating in a weekend-long festival on labour day weekend, where indoor and outdoor projects are presented in a context that mixes artists with non-artists from the local community.
The Don Blanche residency is housed within a massive 8,000 square foot Frankenbarn, created by Don Miller and made from generations of felled barns rebuilt into a unique, one-of-a-kind structure, offering an inspired atmospheres that exists off the grid using solar power, wind power, well water and multiple wood stoves. Artists in residence may use any of the creative facilities, project sites, cooking facilities, media equipment and materials that we have, choosing to work either independently or collaboratively.
The Don Blanche residency takes place from August 27 to September 6, 2010 and is open to any artist or individual interested, with no fee or application process. All artists, writers, teachers, scientists, craftspeople, trades persons and academics are welcome; the only requirement is that you are involved with some form of creative process or want to be. Residents are strongly encouraged to stay for the festival, which takes place from September 3 to 6, 2010. Those interested in being a resident should visit our blog donblanchedonblanche.wordpress.com for more information. The residency was created to provide a safe haven of interdisciplinary experimentation, away from the pressures of the city and outside of the gallery network, in a setting where living and working become elemental. Originally conceived as a gift to artists, Don Blanche was partially created in response to the increasing popularity of urban, blockbuster arts programming in Toronto. While these presentation opportunities are an important part of culture in Ontario, they often put a lot of pressure on artists, who are expected to produce large-scale, marketable and fully articulated artworks for a massive public, with little financial compensation. Don Blanche was born out of the idea of giving to artists what blockbuster arts events do not offer, a safe haven outside the city where cross disciplinary experimentation and artistic differences are celebrated. Our curatorial premise is to say “yes” to everything and everyone who finds us. Don Blanche is a camp, an oasis, a retreat, and facility that is gregarious, improvised and elsewhere.
