Inclusive Mentorship: Integration of New Artists to Public Art

Inclusive Mentorship: Integration of New Artists
to Public Art is a collaboration between SUMO Project
and ZWARTstudio, with the objective of developing a
new mentorship prototype or tool kit to address barriers
in the public art sector. Some of which we have identified
through our work as members of the Toronto Public Art
Commission (TPAC).
Artist as mentor, artist as mentee, the commissioning
agent and the municipalities, all fear the risks and a
possible unsuccessful outcome, that can result from lack
of experience, ability, knowledge of the organizational
structure, time commitment, cost control, etc.

There are also cultural differences. In Canada, a big
number of people, including artists, come from different
socio-geographical backgrounds that function in
different ways. In their countries of origin, they use the
’benefits of informality’ to self-generate opportunities,
but in Canada, the regulations do not allow many of
this ‘guerilla’ interventions and the formal ‘system’ is
hard to understand and navigate, becoming a barrier.

In this research phase have consulted the ‘arts
community’ about their experiences in the field,
obtaining a variety of perspectives to identify both,
barriers, and opportunities resulting in the creation
of a preliminary theoretical tool kit.

Novices experience a variety of barriers that range from
complex language, complex RFP, RFQ and other call for
submission to contracts, copyrights, costing, etc. In addition, they also generally lack a portfolio and community and working connections (fabricators, galleries, art consultants, etc.). They have no knowledge of where to find opportunities, and there is little ‘formal education’ / training in this regard,
etc.in sum, they lack the tools to begin

A second applied reserach phase, will test this toolkit in practice using ‘pilot projects’, evaluating and refining tools that we hope can be widely used to create opportunities for
artists new to Public Art.

Our findings, have been compiled in the following documents:

-Inclusive Mentorship-SUMO-ZWART-Research (Ch.1 to Ch.3)-here

-Inclusive Mentorship-SUMO-ZWART-Findings (Ch.4 to Ch.5)-here