Public Art Opportunities and General Resources

STEPS joins with others across our world in the condemnation of all forms of racist violence against Black, Brown, Indigenous and People of Colour. As an organization committed to supporting communities to activate public space by leveraging the power of arts to raise awareness about inequities in our cities, we must become better allies. This begins with examining our own blindspots and privilege as an organization that operates on stolen land in Tkaronto.

The following is a collection of public art opportunities and resources that we feel may be valuable to our communities. Many have been created by colleagues, while others have been developed or shared by people around the world. This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list. We encourage you to share resources that you have found valuable with our team.

STEPS reaffirms our commitment to amplifying the work of Indigenous, Black, newcomer, LGBTQQIP2SAA+, disabled and artists of colour working across the region that is currently Canada. We will continue to expand the ways we support equity-seeking artists through targeted residencies and equitably paid opportunities. We will continue to facilitate participatory arts programming in some of Canada’s most diverse communities and provide a platform for people to share their vision for our cities. Furthermore, we will continue to listen, learn, and identify ways we can actively address and dismantle racist and exclusionary systems through our work.

We acknowledge that there is so much more we can do, and we welcome feedback on where we can do better. We encourage individuals to learn more about racism in Canada, and ways in which they can take action through allyship, beginning with some of the following resources, which members of our team have found helpful in our own learning.

For additional public art opportunities (calls for artists, workshops, funding opportunities and more), visit the monthly opportunities round-up that is frequently updated with activities on our radar by external organizations.

Image Credit: Gosia Komorski and photography by Selina McCallum

Public Art and Placemaking Resources

Supports for Artists

Supporting Indigenous Communities

Supporting the Black Community

Further Allyship and Other Resources

Accessibility Resources

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