REACH Mentorship/Residency for the Arts
Closing Date of Opportunity: February 1, 2025
Name or Organization: REACH
Contact Email: reach@shevchenkofoundation.ca
Website: https://www.reachmentorship.com/
Post Content:
$30,000 in “REACH Mentorship/Residency for the Arts” Funding is Available in 2025
The $30,000 REACH Mentorship/Residency for the Arts is now in its seventh year, encouraging emerging Canadian artists to reach for their career dreams by seeking opportunities for mentorship, residency, internship, training, workshop, and research. The funding program is a project of the Shevchenko Foundation in partnership with the Ihnatowycz Family Foundation.
The 2025 REACH opportunity is open to individual applicants who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents; are 40 years of age or younger; have a connection to Ukrainian heritage through background, art, culture, and/or language (with no requirement to be Ukrainian Canadian); and work actively within the Ukrainian arts community in Canada and/or worldwide. Applicants are required to have worked at a peer-recognized advanced career level for a minimum of two years in visual, literary, or performing arts, new media, or arts management.
Philanthropists Ian Ihnatowycz and Dr. Marta Witer of the Ihnatowycz Family Foundation believe “the artist’s job is to reach.” They created the REACH Mentorship/Residency for the Arts to give artists what they need to reach higher, further, and deeper in their craft with greater confidence and curiosity; to enable them to reach beyond their current communities and markets while never forgetting who they are.
The inaugural 2019 REACH funding recipient, Toronto-based playwright and theatre artist Andrew Kushnir, invokes playwright Tony Kushner in urging 2025 applicants “to find the big dream, the ‘Great Voyage’ you want to undertake in your creative practice, your life. REACH … allows an artist in Canada to aspire and explore boldly, to transcend perceived limits. What this residency has provided me has certainly impacted my evolution in deep and meaningful ways.”
Continued … Page 2 of 2 In 2024, REACH funding was shared by artists Olya Glotka, Mariya Khomutova, and Sasha Shevchenko. Glotka, a filmmaker and award-winning cinematographer and director based in Toronto, received REACH funding for training and a mentorship in underwater cinematography skill advancement. Khomutova, an award-winning playwright, actor, and screenwriter based in Toronto, received REACH funding to undertake a mentorship toward adapting her play First Métis Man of Odesa into a screenplay. Shevchenko, an artist based in Mississauga who practises in sculpture, textile, archaeology, and intimate ethnography, received REACH funding to research Ukrainian embroidery and its role as a storyteller for Ukrainian diasporic experiences.
The Shevchenko Foundation is a national, chartered philanthropic institution dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and development of the Ukrainian-Canadian cultural heritage and to the advancement of a flourishing Ukrainian community for the enrichment of Canada by providing leadership in building and sustaining a permanent endowment fund.
The deadline for REACH applications is February 1, 2025. Additional information and an application form are available at www.reachmentorship.com. The successful applicant will be announced in May 2025.
