The Power Plant

Artists in Toronto are in need of greater financial stability. The Power Plant and eight other partner organizations who formed an ad hoc collective discovered this is artists' number one need during a series of focus groups and town hall programs during Year 1 of the HORIZON initiative. During Year 2 of the initiative, HORIZON has involved larger public programs and smaller closed workshops intended to address various needs of artists, especially focused on ways for artists to increase income.

Grants at all three levels of government -- municipal, provincial and federal -- often cover materials, supplies, and production costs, including labour. As a result, The Power Plant has the following representatives to share information about grants for which artists may qualify and to offer tips that may help in the application process.

Peter Kingstone, Visual & Media Arts Program Manager, Toronto Arts Council;
Zhe Gu, Visual Arts Officer, Ontario Arts Council;
Isidra Cruz, Program Officer, Creating, Knowing and Sharing: The Arts and Cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Metis Peoples Program, Canada Council for the Arts.

The program will end with questions from the audience moderated by Josh Heuman, The Power Plant's Curator of Education & Public Programs.

SPEAKERS

Peter Kingstone is a Toronto-based visual artist and curator, working primarily in video and photography. As an independent artist, Peter’s installation pieces have been shown across Canada and internationally, and he was awarded the Untitled Artist Award in 2005 for his installation The Strange Case of peter K. (1974-2004). Peter holds a degree in Philosophy/Cultural Studies from Trent University in Peterborough and a Masters of Fine Art focusing on video and new media from York University in Toronto. Peter has presented at many conferences on the ideas around storytelling and social engagement. Peter started in September 2012 as the Acting Visual/Media Arts Program Manager at Toronto Arts Council.

Zhe Gu has been active in Ontario’s visual arts community for over 15 years. Prior to joining the Ontario Arts Council in 2013, she held a number of roles in Ontario public art galleries, including Gallery Stratford where she served as Executive Director for six years, as well as Cambridge Galleries, Grimsby Public Art Gallery, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery. Her areas of responsibility have included curation and collection management, community collaboration, strategic planning, and finance and administration. She is currently the Visual Arts Officer at the Ontario Arts Council.

Isidra Cruz is a Mexican/Cree Arts Administrator and Costume Designer. Isidra has focused her attention to working in the Indigenous arts community with organizations such as imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, Native Earth Performing Arts and as the Indigenous Arts Program Manager at the Toronto Arts Council and the Associate Indigenous Arts Officer at the Ontario Arts Council. She recently worked as the Program Manager for the Indigenous Community Performing Arts Fund, a partnership between the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance and the Department of Canadian Heritage. She is currently a Program Officer for Creating, Knowing & Sharing: The Arts and Cultures of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples at Canada Council for the Arts.

ABOUT HORIZON

In Fall 2018, The Power Plant teamed up with eight other contemporary visual art and film organizations in Toronto for a two-year initiative, called HORIZON, funded with an Open Door grant from the Toronto Arts Council. During the first phase, the nine partner organizations conducted focus groups and town halls to gather information about the needs of emerging and established artists in and around Toronto. Now into the second phase, the organizations are developing and offering programs that address some of the artists’ needs.

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