Apply by 17 December 2023

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To apply to be a co-director please complete the above form. Selected applicants will join the project as co-directors and will receive an honorarium of $450.

Taking up residence across Etherington House and other off-site locations, Wee Bit Off Centre is an embryonic art centre and a gathering place for its own imagining.

This project brings together interested publics to blue-sky art institutions. Guided by research into art institutions and a utopian mood, we collectively shape and rehearse institutional practices, organizational structures and spatial arrangements towards a forward-dreaming, forever-emerging, always-disappearing art centre. We are curious where we might end up when we orient our art institutions differently, towards, say, polyvocal stewardships, alternate metrics of failure, more iterative ways of working.

Public events infolded as part of Wee Bit Off Centre will include a workshop on “Rejection,” karaoke socials and a screening series, with other programming to come out of public input.

Tear Jerkers invites participants to join them as co-directors of Wee Bit Off Centre from 1 January to 31 March 2024.

At its core, this role involves co-stewarding the centre as a group. We will determine more specific details of the role—including responsibilities, time commitments, group decision-making models—together, by consensus. Co-directors meet regularly over the three months, beginning group conversations in January, and building to a public rehearsal of their roles in February and March, with the possibility for an extension of activities beyond the project “end date.”

We welcome applications from any individuals and collectives committed to imagining futures of art institutions. You do not need to have an art practice or art-related work experience.

Your answers can be brief and point-form, whatever makes it easiest for you to be clear and direct. If you prefer to address the questions in a different format than writing, please reach out to tearjerkersss@gmail.com. We are happy to answer any questions about the project at the same email, including details that are TBD such as time commitment.

We recognize the limitations of the form and applications in general and are happy to make accommodations. We also recognize that BIPOC, QPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ folks are underrepresented within institutional art spaces because of ongoing systemic barriers, and strongly encourage applications from equity-seeking communities.

Tear Jerkers will review applications alongside Nasrin Himada, Associate Curator at Agnes Etherington Art Centre. Selected applicants will be contacted before the end of December 2023. There will also be public opportunities to participate in the project for those not selected as co-directors.

Tear Jerkers is a collaboration between Michelle Bunton and GHY Cheung. Since 2019, their projects have examined art institutional practices through the critical lens of hospitality, as well as the relationship between queer aesthetics and the formation of counter-publics.

Curated by Nasrin Himada, Associate Curator, Academic Outreach and Community Engagement