Waterfront Toronto is now accepting proposals for Arts & Culture programs in waterfront spaces

a group of people sitting on a lawn watching an outdoor performance

Animating Our Waterfront grant program returns for 2017

Waterfront Toronto’s Animating Our Waterfront program returns for its second year. The program provides funding to individuals, organizations, collectives and groups that want to create free arts and cultural programming in waterfront parks and public spaces during the summer months. The objective of this program is to facilitate arts and cultural programming that celebrate public spaces and invite Torontonians and visitors to enjoy our waterfront. Applications will be accepted for presentations of dance, music, performance, literary and media arts, community-engaged artwork, and any combination of the above.

Waterfront Toronto encourages proposals that incorporate themes like placemaking, civic engagement, education, health and wellness, and environmental issues.

Application Deadline: March 24, 2017 at 12:00pm

Learn more in our blog post - Fueling Arts, Culture and Creativity on Toronto’s Waterfront

Animating Our Waterfront is an initiative which is wholly operated by Waterfront Toronto.

PROJECT ELIGIBILITY

Activity must be free and open to the general public, including all persons in the park or public space.

Activity should take place between June 1 and September 30, 2017.

New this year: This program may fund expenses related to the creation or presentation of new site-specific work by artists if the proposal demonstrates the project is achievable and the artist or organization has a track record of successfully producing works of similar size and scope.

Expenses related to works created by participants in community engagement projects are eligible.

For presentation projects, the artistic work must have already been created or be nearing completion at the time of application. Expenses related to site specific adaptation of a previous work or of an existing work, or expenses related to partial project restoration or re-fabrication may be eligible.

For community engaged work, the type of artistic work around which the project will be framed must have been previously undertaken in some capacity and the applicant must have previous experience working on community engaged projects.

Applications are welcome in the following disciplines:

dance
literary arts
music
theatre
media arts
multi-disciplinary (2 or more of the above disciplines)

Activities that can be funded through this program include:

performance
installation
screening
community engagement

VALUE OF GRANT

Maximum Grant: $10,000

Grants awarded may be less than the full amount requested. Applicants are not required to secure other sources of funding.

Grant recipients will be provided with:

funding toward artist fees and production elements
facilitated access to the park or public space (permit dates subject to approval by City of Toronto Parks, Forestry & Recreation or other relevant city departments)
facilitation of event permit licensing and liability insurance
Street Projects miniature art gallery installation in Corktown Common
information regarding additional requirements (site plan, waste and recycling diversion plan)
marketing, promotion and inclusion on Waterfront Toronto’s website, blog and social
media channels
required signage under the Animating Our Waterfront banner
support from Waterfront Toronto’s public engagement staff, as required

Application Deadline: March 24, 2017 at 12:00pm

For more details and complete application instructions, please download the Program Guidelines [PDF – 900KB].