Feedback from the Peer Jury
Starting in October 2023, after artsnb releases the results of its program competitions, general constructive comments and recommendations from the peer jury evaluation of the most recent competition can be found here.
Please note that these comments are summarized from the discussions in the peer jury meetings, and do not necessarily relate to every application submitted to that deadline. The goal of sharing this feedback is to provide some insight into the jurying process, and to strengthen future applications.
Summary of the Peer Jury Feedback from the March 1, 2024 Deadlines – Artist in Residence and Career Development Programs
Artist in Residence Program
General Information and data:
- The jury evaluated 25 applications and was able to award 22 grants with the available budget envelope for this competition (88.0 % success rate).
- The jury assigned 3 applications the status of Not Recommended. This result does not necessarily mean that the work lacks merit; grant assessment is a competitive process and budgets are limited. Remember that every competition has a different set of applicants and a different jury.
- The department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture has announced additional funding to the remodeled Artist in Residence program, as a response to the recommendations from the Premier’s Task Force on the Status of the Artist.
Recommendations on application components:
- The jury members recommend using the Project Description to clearly explain the goals and activities planned for each residency project (e.g. creation or development of a new work, leading workshops, performances, etc.). This is especially important since there are many types of residency, and significant variation in what a “standard” residency can include in different artistic disciplines.
- The jury members appreciated applications that explain exactly how the residency project will advance or benefit the artist’s career or development.
- The jury members wished to underline the difference between an artist CV and a work resume or bio. The document provided for the CV section of each application should clearly represent the artist’s practice and artistic activities, rather than focusing on job experience outside the arts.
- For residencies in which an artist intends to develop or expand upon an existing project, the jury members recommend including samples from that existing work in the application. For applicants submitting video samples of their work, the jury members emphasized the importance of clear, well-lit image quality (i.e. not blurry or pixelated).
- The jury members appreciated when organizations that offer regular residency opportunities feature a diverse range of established and emerging artists from a variety of backgrounds in their residency programming.
Other artsnb programs that may interest the artists who applied to this program deadline:
Career Development Program
General Information and data:
- The jury evaluated 37 applications and was able to award 19 grants with the available budget envelope for this competition (51.4 % success rate).
- 3 additional applications received a status of Merit. This status indicates that the jury wished to recommend these applications for funding, but that the program budget was insufficient to fund all meriting applications.
- The jury assigned 15 applications the status of Not Recommended. If an application isn’t recommended, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the work lacks merit. Grant assessment is a competitive process and budgets are limited. Remember that every competition has a different set of applicants and a different jury.
Recommendations on application components:
- Strong applications in this competition included a detailed and clear project description, a feasible rationale for how this grant would push the applicant forward in their practice, a balanced and well-justified budget, and a selection of relevant samples of work. The jurors especially appreciated when an applicant used clear and concise language to explain their project at the beginning of the project description (ie. “I have been invited to present my work at this festival…” or “I propose creating an artist’s website to showcase my work…”), then went into more detail to describe the relevance of the proposed project to the funding program and to the applicant’s career.
- The jurors commented that many applications had extremely short project descriptions, which made it difficult to assess the merit of the proposed activity or the impact on the artist. The jurors recommend taking advantage of the 350-word limit for project descriptions to include as much detail as possible. Since jurors can only evaluate what is included in the application, it is vital to provide thorough information for an audience that may not be familiar with your work.
- Some of the applications in this competition had missing or incomplete details about proposed collaborators; the jury recommended including a clear invitation or collaboration letter with well-defined roles and outcomes, and a budget line for payment to mentors or collaborators, if applicable.
- For applicants submitting a sample of work featuring multiple collaborators, such as a group performance video, the jurors recommend that the applicant identify the featured collaborators and indicate which person(s) are to be evaluated by the jury.
- This program allows multiple collaborating artists to submit individual applications; in this case, the jury recommends personalizing each application, to give a better sense of each individual artist applying and their role in the proposed project. If multiple applications for the same project are submitted by separate artists collaborating in the project, there must be no duplication in the expenses included in the applicants’ budgets.
The jurors recommend that applicants curate their selection of samples of work, including targeted samples/extracts for the jurors to evaluate. Please refer to Appendix 2 of the program guidelines for more detail on submitting samples of work. If the applicant provides more work than is allowed in the guidelines, the jurors start evaluating at the beginning of the work and may not have the time to see all of the relevant portions of the samples of work.
Other artsnb programs that may interest the artists who applied to this program deadline:
Feedback from the peer jury for past competitions
