Theme: Setsubun / 節分
Residency Dates: December 1, 2025 – February 3, 2026
Public Presentation: February 3, 2026
The Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) invites applications for a residency in which five Nikkei or Nikkei-related artists will inhabit our building as a site of experiment and threshold.
Setsubun is an ancient hinge in the Japanese calendar: the turning point when winter’s weight begins to lift and the unsettled forces of change arrive. It is a night of thresholds, when the invisible presses close, and communities act to re-draw the boundaries between misfortune and renewal. At its heart, Setsubun is less a ‘matsuri’ and more an encounter with the unseen. We recognize that luck, fate, and spirit circulate among us, and that through collective gestures we can shift the conditions of our shared life.
We invite artists to engage with this idea of crossing thresholds whether between light and shadow, fortune and calamity, or the material and the spectral. We invite those with and without experience to work with digital technologies like projection mapping, sound, lasers, or other luminous tools. she JCCC will become both site and canvas, a place where artists can experiment with how Setsubun might speak to our current moment of volatility and renewal.
This residency asks artists to treat the Centre itself as a body on the cusp of change.
We invite proposals that touch on Setsubun’s deeper resonances:
- the act of crossing thresholds and re-drawing boundaries;
- the recognition of spectral forces at play in daily life;
- the possibility of banishing and inviting, letting go and making space;
Residency Details:
- Participants: 5 Nikkei artists or artists working in Japanese or Japanese Canadian cultural forms
- Support: Weekly 3-hour evening instruction plus open time to develop projects with mentorship, technical guidance, equipment, and workspace access during Centre hours (except major events)
- Honorarium: $500
- Public sharing: February 3, 2026, as part of JCCC’s Setsubun celebration
How to Apply:
Submit a single PDF to jerroldm@jccc.on.ca with subject line Setsubun Residency 2026:
- A statement of interest (max 300 words) reflecting on how Setsubun’s symbolic and threshold qualities could enter your work.
- Short artist bio (max 200 words).
- Up to 5 images or links to past work.
Deadline: October 31, 2025