DesignTO Festival 2020 Call for Guest Artists & Designers

The DesignTO Festival brings people together to celebrate contemporary design across the city January 17-26, 2020.

Join the Festival to become a part of an exciting network of creative people, exhibitions, events, and a captive audience of designers and design-lovers. Last year the Festival had 100+ events and exhibitions across the city with 150K+ visitors. From design talks to experimental installations to prototypes to opening parties and curated exhibitions, the Festival featured the work of over 600 artists and designers.

If you have a project you’d like to showcase, then we want to hear from you!

We have a range of host venues across the City of Toronto interested in showcasing your creative project, whether it be a shop, gallery, studio, café, or school.

How this works:

By submitting to this call for guest artists/designers, you agree to produce a creative project to be showcased during Festival Week, January 17-26, 2020. The duration and type of participation is entirely up to you. Here is an outline of options:

• A window installation runs the whole duration of Festival Week, and is visible to the public 24 hours a day from the outside of the venue. Depending on the space, the installation may also be viewable from inside the venue during regular business/gallery hours.
• An event runs one day during Festival Week, for a set period of time. For example, events can include a talk, tour, product launch, film screening, party, or workshop.
• An exhibition runs more than one day during Festival Week. It is open to the public during regular business/gallery hours, and may include a window component. It can start before Festival Week, and end after Festival Week. It may also include an opening or closing reception, or artist/designer’s talk.

Host Venues

A package of available venues (with photos and descriptions) is available for your review and selection.

After reviewing the available host venues, we ask that you identify your top 3 venue choices with your submission.

Please note that while we try our best to create successful outcomes for all artists/designers, we are not able to guarantee that every submission will be paired.

Confirmation

After the submission deadline, successful artists/designers will be contacted with a confirmation of participation, including the name of the selected host venue.

At that time, we ask that artists/designers reply (by email) with their acceptance before Friday, October 4, 2019.

Commitment

Host venues commit to paying the Festival registration fee, and provide the venue free of charge to the artist/designer.

As the artist/designer, you are responsible for all costs related to creating, producing and mounting your creative project, including signage. You are also responsible for collaborating well with your host venue, which includes communicating the details of your project, including all logistics, with the owner/manager of the host venue, and coordinating the project’s successful execution.

Information about your project, and representative images will be due Friday, October 18, 2019, which is our content deadline for everyone.

Each project receives the following:

• A listing on the online Festival Schedule (one page with up to 6 images, 200-word description, 1 associated reception or other event);
• A listing on the Festival mobile App (one page with up to 6 images, 40-word description, 1 associated reception or other event);
• A listing in the printed Festival Guide (event or exhibition name, dates, address, 40-word description) with an anticipated distribution of 10,000 copies city-wide;
• Inclusion in one “What to do” daily e-newsletter; and
• DesignTO venue signage (e.g. Festival window cling, not project-specific).

Submissions must include:

1. A short bio about you or your creative practice (max. 150 words);
2. 3-5 images of the work that you are proposing to exhibit, or 3-5 images of representative work (for new creations, prototypes or workshops) — maximum image size 1Mb each;
3. A description of the window installation, exhibition, or event you want to do, in less than 500 words — please be sure to include as many logistical and technical requirements as you can, such as wall and ceiling mounting, access to power, etc.;
4. Optional sketches of your proposal;
5. Your top three venue choices from the host venues package; and
6. Your
   1. Contact info (name, email, and phone number),
   2. CV, and
   3. Website URL (if available).

* Only submissions through the online form will be considered. *

Deadlines

All submissions are due Friday, September 13, 2019 by 11:59pm EST.

Questions?

• Visit us online to see last year’s roster of events, exhibitions, and window installations: https://designto.org/2019-schedule/.
• Email questions to Programs Coordinator Victoria Chin at victoria [at] designto.org with this subject line: Host Venue Call + your name.