About the CIR project
This three-month, part-time residency invites curators from across the Greater Toronto Area to connect with artists working and living in Markham and across York Region.
Taking place at BLDG 333, the residency provides opportunities to focus on research into the creative opportunities in outer urban and industrial realms through community-building, public activation, programming and other activities. Additional attention may be given to how urban planning, zoning and related issues help or hinder cultural development in the area. Curatorial projects relating to geographic, socio-economic and cultural transformation and similar issues will also be considered.
This curatorial residency is a key part of a longer-term vision for the transformation of a series of industrial buildings into a thriving arts district.
The residency offers:
- An office and exhibition/activation space for the curator/artist
- Introductions to the local arts community, including but not limited to the City of Markham, York Region Arts Council and the Varley Art Gallery
- Studio visits with artists working on site and locally
- Introductions to other communities including Markham Board of Trade, community groups and City councillors
- Feedback from curators across York Region and the Greater Toronto Area
About us
333 Industrial Arts is a new collective, formed by emerging Chinese Canadian curator Yuluo Wei and art entrepreneur & critic Andrea Carson Barker, both of whom are presently working in Markham. Yuluo is a graduate of U of T Curatorial Masters program and Andrea was founder of View on Canadian Art, a widely-read culture blog and co-founder & curator of Artbomb, the daily online art auction site, among other projects.
Our collective was formed to facilitate unexpected, exciting and relevant creative projects throughout a portfolio of industrial buildings in Markham. Our curatorial residency aims to bridge a gap by introducing curators across the Greater Toronto Area and artists living & working in York Region. We want to celebrate the incredible artists who exist in this realm, and in so doing, celebrate community. We will enable highly creative, unconventional curatorial projects in the prime, underused space of in this area’s large warehouses, offices, expanses of walls and parking lots.
We aim to develop new audiences for art by engaging an area outside downtown, to surprise and delight, to examine ways to bring groups including ethnically diverse and new immigrant communities together to initiate conversations and encourage them to view their environment in a new way while attracting others to an unconventional site where they will be excited and challenged.