The Jackman Humanities Institute is pleased to open the call for an Artist in Residence for the 2026-27 academic year. Artists typically come for a semester, but may be in residence for the full academic year, and must interact with the campus humanities community, as well as work on a project of their choosing that intersects with the Institute’s 2026-27 annual theme Doubles, Doppelgangers.
Eligibility
All proposals for the 2026-27 JHI Artist in Residence must come directly from the Dean, Chair or Program Director of a humanities/arts&culture unit on UT-Mississauga campus and should indicate divisional support for the application. Applications will be adjudicated by the JHI.
Application Components
Instructions for Chairs/Directors
All applicants must complete the online application with the following documents in a single PDF:
- Statement of intent, describing what your unit plans to accomplish through his/her/their residency and how this artist would contribute to the University of Toronto, the Division, and humanities communities (1-2 pages)
- Artist CV
- Sample of work (upload a sample of work or links to samples of work online)
- Sample of recent publications and/or publicity
Information Required for an Artist in Residence Proposal
The online application asks for the following information:
- Co-sponsoring unit
- Unit Dean/Chair/Director
- Contact Information for Unit Dean/Chair/Director (email address, telephone number)
- Name of proposed artist
- Contact information for proposed artist (email address, telephone number, website)
- Title of proposed residency project
- Proposed Artist’s primary discipline
- Proposed Artist’s secondary discipline (if applicable)
- Does the proposed artist work with new/electronic media?
- Length of proposed residency
- Other Units in the Division/on the campus with which the proposed artist may be interested in working
- Specific individuals at the University of Toronto (faculty, students) with whom the proposed artist wants to make contact
- Committed support from the proposing unit and Division
- If the proposed artist will be teaching as a part of the shared cost commitment, please provide details
Application Timeline
- Application Open: March 6, 2025
- Application Deadline: April 17, 2025, at 4:00pm EDT
- Selection Notification: April 30, 2025
- Fellowship Period:
- 4 months (Fall 2026)
- 4 months (Winter 2026)
- 8 months (Fall/Winter 2026)
2026-27: Doubles, Doppelgangers
Doubles, mirror images, and infinite recursive nesting of identical structures are omnipresent in nature and in culture. Our stories rely on concepts such as the play within a play, game within a game, dream within a dream, mise en abyme, self-representation, halls of mirrors, replicas/worlds in miniature, imposters, cycles, microhistories and metanarratives. Within our reflections on mind, thought, and metaphysics, we explore reality as (nested) simulation, infinite or eternal spaces or beings, cosmologies where each thing reflects/contains each other thing, hauntings/ghostly echoes/premonitions, and reflections into infinity. Our reflections of nature, whether human, biological, or computational, rely crucially on notions of recursion, recurrence, fractals, and the distortions that accrue across them (mutation, tradition, drift). In disciplines across the humanities, we observe the use of fractals, spirals, images contained in themselves, doubles, reflections (of reflections of reflections), and rhizomes. What might an exploration of doubles and recursion reveal about the ways that we reflect our realities?