CAAF Artist Residencies
CAAF offers studio residencies with the aim to support emerging artists to reach their full potential. By providing space and funding, the CAAF Studio Residency enables emerging artists to further explore their creative practice and take advantage of opportunities that CAAF can provide. Artists are also encouraged to share their process and engage with the community during their residencies.
Apply Now for CAAF’s Residency Program!
Deadline: Sunday, November 9, 2025 at 11:59pm
The CAAF Studio Residency is offered by the Calgary Allied Art Foundation (CAAF). CAAF’s aim is to support emerging artists to reach their full potential. By providing space and funding, the CAAF Studio Residency enables emerging artists to further explore their creative practice and take advantage of future exhibition opportunities that CAAF can provide. Artists are also encouraged to share their process and engage with the community during their residencies.
Residencies are offered in 2 or 3 month durations with a stipend of $700 per month paid to artists upon completion of the residency. All residents are required to purchase an annual membership to CAAF; $20 will be taken from the stipend to pay for the membership. CAAF is unable to provide additional funding or assistance for travel or accommodations to out of town artists, but we can provide a letter of support should you apply for funding on your own.
Applications will be reviewed by an impartial committee, who will base their selections on the overall quality of each application. Artist submissions will be evaluated on the project proposal, artistic merit, need for studio space, and quality of past work.
All artists selected for the residency are expected to undertake this opportunity professionally, respecting the studio space and their neighbours while acting as representatives of CAAF.
We are committed to a diverse, inclusive, and equitable community where all staff, volunteers and artists feel valued and respected regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation or identity, education or disability. For more information refer to our Diversity and Inclusion Statement.
CAAF will accommodate all applicants to the best of our ability, and we will work with applicants who experience barriers.
Please contact caafresidency@gmail.com for support with your application and with any questions.
THE CAAF STUDIOS
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APPLY TO THE CAAF STUDIO RESIDENCIES
CAAF’s cSPACE Studio
Suite #435, 1721 – 29th Avenue SW, Calgary, AB
The studio is located on the fourth floor of cSPACE Marda Loop, a multi-disciplinary creative hub and arts incubator.
280 square feet
Natural light (with room darkening blinds) and adjustable LED lighting
High speed Wifi and fibre connectivity
Elevator
Fully accessibleCAAF’s 500 Collective Studio
#500 – 321 50the Avenue SE , Calgary, ABThe studio is located at 500 Collective, a collective of working spaces for creatives.
85 square feet
Natural light
Wifi
Fully accessible
Current Resident - cSPACE Studio
Jennifer Ilanes - January to March 2025
In 2015, I developed a technique using fabric and interfacing that mimics the look of plate armour, and since then, I’ve used this method to create a variety of sculptures and wearable art. These pieces are made using silk-screened and repurposed fabrics, tartan, leather, found objects, interfacing, and hardware.
Most recently, this style of work was featured in my solo show Pilgrimage of Stories and Stones which was funded by Calgary Arts Development. This collection was begun as a response to my 2022 research trip to Scotland where I delved into the lives of the ancient Celts and the colonization of my ancestors by the Catholic church. The artifacts that I researched have inspired my work through the use of historical imagery and mediums.
The concepts that I investigate in my work include witchcraft, classism, religious trauma, and emotional healing found by analyzing the lives of long-past people. My practice explores the spirituality of my ancestors through my perspective of being raised in a high-demand Christian religion, and the work I've done to leave that behind me.
During this residency, I will expand this side of my practice by creating one wearable art piece in the form of a suit of armour, 3 wall pieces, and 1 stand-alone sculpture. While I make these, the residency space will be open for visitors to ask questions about the techniques and concepts employed. I am also happy to run a workshop or demonstration if the Calgary Allied Arts Foundation is interested. http://jenniferillanes.ca
Current Resident - 500 Collective Studio
Ryan Danny Owen - January to March 2025
My name is Ryan Danny Owen (they, him, her) and I am a non-binary visual artist, queer historian, and author. My interdisciplinary practice explores memory, sexuality, loss, and gender through text, archival practices, and destruction. My exhibition, DIRTY PICTURE (2024), featured the installation, Fantasy Sequence (Blue fantasy motel) imagined as the motel room set of a fictionalized gay porno film and a pavilion to a constructed fantasy exploring a mythology of an impossible history of queerness.
During the studio art CAAF residency, I will develop new work exploring themes of science fiction to explore queer longing, gender, alienness, time, and speculative future. Over the three months, I will construct a space suit costume based on various pulp science fiction novels and media, fetish costumes, and low-budget films and create a series of experimental video pieces recontextualizing queer longing, love, otherness, fantasy, and trans identity into a fictionalized lost sci-fi fantasy epic.
I am interested in using science fiction as a way of exploring aspects of queer identity, desire, and otherness using concepts of the genre such as time travel, speculative futures, space exploration, and extraterrestrial life. Taking inspiration from pulpy sci-fi paperbacks, gay erotica, science fiction media, comics, and low-budget filmmaking to create these constructed fantasies and lost fables of queer utopias, love stories, dystopias, and cautionary tales. http://www.ryandannyowen.com
Current Resident -The Aspen Art Studio (carya residency)
Cece Marin, Summer AiR - July to September 2025
Driven by an ever-present curiosity and infused with a playful spirit, my creations are a tribute to the magic inherent in our natural world. Through the interplay of colours, textures, and forms, I invite observers to rediscover the enchantment that hides within the ordinary and evoke a sense of wonderment. By creating my own pigments from foraged and cultivated materials, I experiment with how the natural world can shape not just the subject of my work, but the medium itself. This process deepens my connection to my surroundings, allowing each piece to carry a sense of place and season.
Continuous exploration with new techniques and materials is integral to my creative journey. Experimentation allows me to push the boundaries of my imagination and reveal new possibilities within my artistic practice.
During the residency, I will invite participants into a collaborative exploration of nature based creative expression. Rooted in the use of botanical inks, natural dyes, and ecoprinting, our sessions will centre on shared learning, curiosity, and the joy of making together. We’ll carry colour as a common thread throughout the residency - working with the same natural materials in different ways to explore how context, technique, and collaboration shape outcomes.
For example, we might use oak galls to produce a rich, medieval-inspired black ink; oak leaves to create layered contact prints on fabric; or oak gall solutions to prepare textiles for dyeing. These practices offer an entry point into deeper conversations about process, reciprocity, and our connections to place, materials, and each other.
cecemarin.com
We acknowledge the generous support of Calgary Arts Development, the Province of Alberta through Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and our endowment funds at the Calgary Foundation: the Marion and Jim Nicoll Bequest, Douglass Motter Fund, Wesley Irwin Fund and H.B. Hill Trust.
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