Welcome
Welcome to the first cohort of I Love My Gig Ontario! You are joining 13 other remarkable people from across the province. We cannot wait to see where your dreams take you in the coming days.
This page is a living resource that will be updated over time. It is written in plain language and features details about what to expect with suggestions to help you prepare.
Feel free to jump around to material that interests you the most. The various sections do not need to be read in the order they are presented. You will benefit from focusing on all the practical details in the “What will I do?” section early on, while the others will help you as you dive deeper.
We are here to support you every step of the way. Reach out to the Care Team at care@artspond.com with any questions.
What is it?
Last updated: February 12, 2025
How has the pandemic changed your understanding of care?
I Love My Gig Ontario is an online-only fellowship with creative gig workers who are Indigenous, Racialized, Deaf, Disabled, or live in Suburban, Rural, and Remote communities.
In a supportive environment, you will be reflecting on your individual lessons from the pandemic and exploring ways to collectively address future crises with creativity and care.
Your fellowship journey will culminate in the publication of a personal project that summarizes your creative stories and suggestions to help communities across Ontario not only survive, but thrive, the next planetary crisis or disaster.
While other timings are possible, we anticipate you will spend approximately 10% (~5 hours) of the fellowship planning your journey (including reviewing this Welcome Guide), 20% (~10 hours) meeting and sharing ideas with other fellows and the care team, 20% (~10 hours) exploring stories, and 50% (~25 hours) making suggestions.
Learn more
ArtsPond is a changemaker of a different kind.
From our office in Tkaronto (Toronto), we are grateful to live and work on the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, and Mississaugas of the Credit. These territories are part of Treaty 13 and the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Covenant and are now home to many diverse Indigenous nations, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. We recognize Indigenous peoples as caretakers of Turtle Island and honour their traditions, cultures, and legacies in all realms of life, including digital spaces.
We stand firmly in allyship with Indigenous people and other justice-deserving groups and believe arts and culture can play a powerful role in decolonization. Through creativity, we also aim to challenge the roots and impacts of sexism, racism, economic inequality, ableism, audism, the climate crisis, digital transformation, and other systemic harms in society.
I Love My Gig Ontario is proudly presented by ArtsPond with funding from Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Government of Ontario.
Show up
Show up and honour your commitments by being fully involved in the fellowship. This means replying to emails, attending meetings, working with others, and completing your project while being mindful of how your actions affect the group. If life becomes unpredictable, let us know, and our care team will support you. Being present is important, even when it feels hard, but your health and wellbeing come first.
Own your journey
This fellowship is an opportunity to explore your life, work, and community with curiosity and care. Stay open to the wisdom of your experiences, the world around you, and even your dreams. The more you take charge of your journey, the more you will learn and grow.
Bring sustenance to the hive
This fellowship supports your growth, but it also relies on the skills and perspectives you bring to the group. Instead of just taking insights home, share your contributions generously to create a community of care and learning. Together, we can build meaningful conversations and connections that benefit everyone.
Hold your certainties lightly
We all hold beliefs that shape us, and this fellowship respects your values while inviting openness and respect for others. Many of you are exploring new ways of thinking and being. By facing uncertainty together, we can imagine and create better futures.
Commit to creative growth
Creative growth takes effort, patience, and a willingness to face challenges. Stay committed to your project, embrace the ups and downs, and see obstacles as chances to learn. Asking for help is always okay. Your engagement will lead to meaningful work that reflects your unique voice.
The apocalypse is here
It can seem like the world is moving from one crisis to another, making it hard to keep up and stay hopeful.
For generations, problems like poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction have pushed many communities and ecosystems to the edge. The Covid-19 pandemic was one of the biggest health disasters in recent history, but for many, its impact has been relatively short-term. Now, other urgent threats are taking over the conversation, leaving those still struggling with Long Covid and other pandemic challenges behind.
Some of the biggest concerns today include political conflict and wars, rising nationalist movements, economic trade wars, worsening climate disasters like droughts and wildfires, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. There are growing threats from digital transformation, worsening housing and affordability crises, refugee crises, food insecurity, loneliness, and much more. Some experts warn that the United States could (or has already) become politically unstable, leading to global consequences.
Earlier this year, the Doomsday Clock moved closer to midnight than ever before. Scientists say the risk of nuclear war, disease, and extreme climate events is at its highest point, worsened by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
It can all feel overwhelming, making it difficult to see the value of our creative work when so many urgent problems demand attention. But how do we describe what is happening? What have we learned from the pandemic about managing and talking about global crises? And what role can gig workers in arts and culture play in responding to these challenges?
Some tentative definitions
- Crises are large-scale, ongoing problems that develop over time and disrupt systems, societies, or even the planet. They require urgent attention but may not always cause immediate destruction. Examples include climate change, rising inequality, and threats to democracy. These challenges demand long-term, creative solutions and policy changes.
- Disasters are sudden, severe events that cause major harm to people, communities, or the environment. They often require immediate response and recovery efforts from government and social services, such as earthquakes, wildfires, or economic collapses. Disasters are often regional or issue-based, affecting specific groups or areas more intensely.
- Emergencies are localized or personal situations that need quick action to prevent harm. For an individual, these might include a medical emergency, an eviction notice, or losing income unexpectedly. While they may not affect large populations, they can be life-altering for people and require urgent support.
- Polycrises occur when multiple crises happen at the same time, making their effects worse. For example, climate change causes extreme heat, leading to wildfires that destroy homes and worsen air pollution, which in turn affects public health, increased poverty, gentrification pressures while rebuilding, and more. These challenges are deeply connected to one another and require coordinated responses.
Some promising responses
It can feel overwhelming to think about these big challenges, but creatives and cultural workers have an important role to play:
- Raise awareness – Art can make complex issues easier to understand and help people connect emotionally to big challenges. Films, performances, murals, and digital media can bring attention to issues like climate change, housing, and political injustice.
- Create spaces for dialogue – The arts can cultivate conversations that build understanding and inspire solutions. Public art, storytelling, and cultural events can bring people together to discuss and respond to crises in meaningful ways.
- Support healing and care – Creativity can help people process trauma, find hope, and rebuild after disasters or emergencies. Community arts programs, music, and creative therapy can provide comfort and strength in difficult times.
- Adapt and innovate – Gig workers in arts and culture are used to uncertainty and finding new ways to survive. Sharing knowledge, collaborating with mutual aid networks, and experimenting with new creative business models can help navigate economic and social instability.
- Advocate for change – Arts and culture can influence policy and mobilize communities to demand better responses to crises. Whether through protest art, activism, or direct engagement with decision-makers, creatives can push for action on issues that matter.
What else can we do? What do you need? What do you want to try? How can we connect and collaborate together? While the world faces immense challenges, creativity remains a powerful tool for making sense of them, responding with care, and imagining new possibilities for the future.
Stories can provide the foundation for seeking and shaping wisdom and knowledge, helping us reflect on what has worked, what hasn’t, and what has been missing in our lives before, during, and after the pandemic. They offer crucial context for identifying pathways to meaningful change.
We invite you to spend about one-fifth (~10 hours) of your fellowship diving into and documenting your own personal stories from the pandemic.
If you are unsure about what stories you want to focus on, try thinking about the difficult things that were harmful or hindered and held you back during the pandemic. Try thinking about things that you experienced or tried that hacked the system for the better or worse. Also consider the more positive things that helped you or brought people and communities together. There may also be harmful or hopeful experiences from before or after the lockdowns from 2020 to 2023 that you want to contrast or bring forward as alternative narratives. This approach is based on ArtsPond’s practice called, Heart Well.
If that doesn’t quite resonate with you, try thinking about stories that express the impacts of difficult disasters (crises, losses) or deserts (shutdowns, shortfalls) that you experienced during the pandemic. What about everyday gaps and fears, hopes, surprising acts of care, or dreams and new opportunities that were unexpectedly realized during the pandemic? Were there feelings or experiences of abundance, love, and prosperity? In what ways was your pandemic experience binded by scarcity, oppression, and loss? This approach is based on ArtsPond’s practice called, Demand Well.
Your stories may be difficult to process. We are here for you as you seek pathways to healing. Your stories may also be surprisingly heartwarming or validating of the power of your creative wisdom and energy. We cannot wait to celebrate this with you. Wherever your attentions take you, take note of what lessons they are trying to teach you about a more caring future.
You will notice there are a lot of “you’s” there. That is intentional. We are primarily interested in your stories and experiences and not the stories of others. While you are invited to explore stories other than your own, there can be challenges with respectful stewardship of privacy, intellectual property, consent, and accountability to community when we focus on stories that are not our own. If you decide to feature the experiences of others in your work, we will want to ensure their contributions are appropriately acknowledged and that there is consent to participate.
For example, this could apply to a project that includes a survey of community members. Before proceeding with the survey, we will work with you to ensure that participants will understand how the information will be used, and that they provide consent for their information to be shared with you, ArtsPond as the hosting organization, and the public when the project is published.
If your project includes images or other information from children and youth under the age of 18, we require a consent form to be signed by their legal guardian for this material to be used. While not legally binding, we would also like youth to provide their consent in a way that feels comfortable for them.
Suggestions are where your true creation begins for this fellowship, as you seek to imagine real and radical dreams for building better systems of connection and care in the future.
We invite you to spend about one-half (~25 hours) of your fellowship thinking about, seeking out, and documenting suggestions to realize a more caring future and connecting them back to the stories you want to share.
If you are unsure where to start, try thinking about therapies that can help us survive the many challenges that lie ahead. What worked during the pandemic that you think should be carried forward, amplified, or adapted for the next crisis? Also consider potential solutions or remedies that can help us not only survive, but thrive.
Your suggestions might also feature things that are to be led or supported by you. Or they might be things you need others to take on with your lived experience providing guidance on what is needed. For each of your suggestions, try to draw upon your stories for examples of the care you need or want to share.
If you do not have direct experience with mutual aid networks, what might be some community-engaged or collaborative approaches to help strengthen access to care or guide the changes we need to see in the face of future crises?
To help organize your ideas, take a look at some of ArtsPond’s practices at the bottom of this page, such as Path Well, Activate Well, Life Well, Care Well (Action), Care Well (Personality), or Justice Well. Do any of your ideas fit with any of these different perspectives or groups? What ideas might you be able to generate for some of the elements you haven’t considered yet?
For example, for Care Well (Personality), what ways do you expect to need care (careseeker), want to share care (caregiver), or hope to lead the making of new forms of care (caremaker)? For Life Well, what changes do you want in your everyday personal or professional life (real life), or what types of care do you want for past and future or imaginary life (ancestral and dream life).
If you are still uncertain, you can try imagining a future where there is another pandemic. Bird flu and measles are top health concerns in Canada for 2025. What would you want to keep, let go of, or change next time? Or you might try to take the lessons of Covid-19 and apply them to another type of threat or crisis to our safety and livelihood, such as climate, conflict and war, racism, and more.
How can mutual aid networks or other community-focused activities help address these challenges? What do you want ArtsPond and others in the community to do (including ASOs and ASOs+)?
Feel free to look at what others are doing as you try to identify and prioritize your suggestions. Just make sure you take good notes about where your sources are coming from so they can be appropriately acknowledged, and if they are not publicly available resources, to make sure both you and ArtsPond have their consent to include it in your project.
Finally, we can work with you to determine a different balance if a two-thirds focus on suggestions is feeling uncomfortable for you.
Why now?
Last updated: February 12, 2025
This fellowship is happening now because the pandemic has shown us both the good and the weak spots in how we give and receive care during small to big personal emergencies and planetary crises.
Even though the pandemic may feel less urgent now for some, its effects are still here, and more challenges are likely to come. Now is the time to think about what we have learned and find better ways to care for each other in the future.
Mutual aid networks were a bright spot for many during the early days of the pandemic, stepping in to fill gaps in care that traditional services and government could not. Now, as burnout increases and community needs shift, the future of these groups is uncertain. Some questions to consider:
- What should we do next, before the next planetary crisis hits?
- What approaches to care, from both pandemic and pre-pandemic times, do you want to keep?
- What approaches to care do you want to let go of, change, or create from scratch?
- What types of care are best led by individuals or small groups, rooted in local neighbourhoods and communities?
- What types of care are best led by organizations, governments, or other collective bodies at a regional, provincial, or systems level?
- What types of care are best led or supported by you?
We believe the stories and suggestions you share in this fellowship can inspire creative ways to support and care for others. We hope this experience helps you explore how your creative work can make a positive difference in your community. We also want to help you think about challenges you might face and how organizations like ours (and others) can support you to become better changemakers and caregivers before the next crisis happens.
Learn more
A fellowship is typically a self-directed opportunity where participants work independently to develop ideas and create work based on their experiences, with support provided for personal growth and contributions.
A residency, on the other hand, is often a more structured program focused on collaboration and co-creation, with participants engaging in shared projects and activities.
We chose a fellowship format because collaborative co-creation is challenging in a virtual-only setting. A fellowship allows for flexibility and independent reflection, while residencies, which we will only host in-person, are better suited for collective expressions.
In many ways, you could think of yourself during this fellowship as any of the following:
- Creative or cultural researcher, futurist, architect, or engineer
- Social issues journalist or opinion columnist
- Community-engaged activist, provocateur, positive deviant
- Mindful storyteller, elder, grandmother
- And many more
What do you see yourself being during the fellowship? What do you yearn for in becoming after it is over?
Community and self-expression can take many forms, including artistic, creative, and cultural practices, and more. Each form of expression offers unique ways to inspire, connect, and make an impact. Whether it drives change, strengthens care, educates, or exists purely for the joy of creating, these expressions shape how we understand ourselves, our communities, and the world.
For example, if you are an artist, we invite you to consider which of the following best describes your creative practices, both in the past and present, as well as what you hope for in the future. What types of care will each of your practices need to thrive, and how do you hope to use them to share care with others in the future?
Art for art’s sake
Art for art’s sake values creativity as its own purpose. It is about creating simply because it brings joy, beauty, or self-expression, without needing to serve a larger goal like activism or healing.
For example, painting for personal enjoyment or composing music for its beauty alone celebrates the freedom to create. Art for art’s sake highlights the importance of imagination and creativity as fundamental parts of life.
Art for change
Art for change uses creativity to highlight social issues and inspire action. It focuses on problems like inequality, injustice, or environmental challenges, helping people think differently and work toward a better future.
Examples might include a play that sparks conversations about climate change or a mural that celebrates equity and diversity. Art for change can also address long-term challenges by connecting people with movements for fairness, justice, and sustainability, creating ripples of impact beyond individual efforts.
Art for care
Art for care focuses on supporting wellbeing and connection. It brings safety, comfort, healing, and strength to individuals and communities. For example, arts-based therapy programs or workshops that create safe spaces for self-expression can strengthen personal and collective growth.
Beyond people, art for care can also support the vitality and sustainablity of spaces, the planet, and larger systems. It might involve improving creative access to public areas, addressing environmental issues, or nurturing creative connections that sustain life and strengthen communities in response to big and complex challenges.
Art for learning
Art is a powerful tool for education and understanding. It simplifies complex ideas, shares cultural stories, and raises awareness about important issues.
For example, a documentary that explains social inequalities or a sculpture that invites reflection on history can inspire deeper learning. Art for learning helps individuals and communities explore themselves and the world around them.
Art for community
Art for community brings people together, creating shared experiences that build relationships and strengthen bonds. It can preserve cultural traditions, amplify underrepresented voices, and deepen a sense of belonging. Examples include community murals, local festivals, or storytelling projects that document and celebrate diverse cultures.
It also includes community-engaged practices, where community members take the lead in shaping the creative expression, with support and guidance from artists. These collaborative projects empower communities to tell their own stories and create art that reflects their unique perspectives and experiences. Art for community is about shared ownership and connection, making creativity a tool for building stronger, more inclusive communities.
If you are looking for examples of stories from the pandemic, take a look at any of the following. More links to be added in the coming days.
- I Lost My Gig Canada – Impact Stories
Impact stories taken from a national survey of gig workers from the first six months of the pandemic in March to August 2020. Presented by ArtsPond and partners. - I Lost My Gig Canada – Urgent Needs
Expressions of urgent needs for the first year of the pandemic, taken from a national survey of gig workers in the first six months of the pandemic in March to August 2020. Present by ArtsPond and partners.
What is mutual aid?
Mutual aid is a form of community-based support where people come together to help each other meet their needs. It is often volunteer-run and rooted in the principles of solidarity, not charity, meaning everyone contributes and benefits as equals.
Mutual aid groups usually focus on providing practical care and resources, depending on the specific needs of the community. This care might include:
- Food assistance: Organizing food banks, sharing meals, or distributing groceries.
- Housing support: Helping with rent, offering temporary shelter, or advocating for housing rights.
- Financial aid: Providing funds for emergencies, bills, or essential supplies.
- Healthcare and wellbeing: Offering mental health support, medication access, or organizing health workshops.
- Skill-sharing: Teaching skills like gardening, job training, or language learning to help others become more self-sufficient.
Mutual aid groups typically operate informally, with no strict hierarchy. Decisions are made collectively, and actions are often grassroots and flexible, allowing them to quickly respond to changing needs. The goal is to build stronger, more connected communities where people care for and rely on each other, especially when traditional systems fail to provide adequate support.
Pandemic mutual aid networks
Mutual aid networks were one of the things that really helped a lot of people during the pandemic. Examples of mutual aid networks in arts and culture are listed below. More details coming soon.
- I Lost My Gig Canada | Page (Facebook) | Group (Facebook)
- CareMongering TO
- https://canadianart.ca/interviews/mutual-aid-during-a-pandemic-why-artists-helped-form-torontos-encampment-support-network/
- https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mutual-aid-long-term-efforts-1957476
- https://news.artnet.com/art-world/museum-mutual-aid-1896306
- https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/304
- https://this.org/2021/09/10/mutual-aid-in-a-post-pandemic-world/
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/08/pandemic-mutual-aid-politics-food-banks-welfare-state
- https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/04/01/how-build-mutual-aid-will-last-after-coronavirus-pandemic
What is an ASO? ASO stands for Arts Service Organization or Arts Support Organization. These groups, usually set up as non-profits, offer affordable services or free community support to creatives in one or more artistic disciplines at local, regional, or national levels.
In Canada, ASOs are typically member-led organizations that represent professional artists or arts groups. They focus on advocacy, professional development, research, and raising public awareness. ASOs are funded through a mix of membership fees, service fees, and grants, playing a key role in building connections, supporting growth, and shaping policies in the arts.
There are different types of ASOs:
- Local ASOs (LASOs): Support arts in specific cities or regions, often across multiple disciplines. Examples include Arts Etobicoke and Scarborough Arts in Toronto.
- Provincial ASOs (PASOs): Focus on a single province or territory, usually in specific industries, like Craft Ontario or Dance Ontario.
- National ASOs (NASOs): Operate across Canada, often with a single focus (e.g., CARFAC or Canadian Music Centre) or, more recently, across multiple disciplines, like ArtsPond.
ArtsPond is one of the few NASOs supporting all disciplines nationwide. However, we see ourselves as more than a traditional ASO. Service and support alone do not fully describe our work as a changemaker and caregiver in the arts. We think of ourselves as an ASO+, offering deeper accountability and care for the creative communities we serve.
What is an ASO+? ASO+ describes organizations that go beyond traditional arts services and support to drive systems change and mutual care in arts and culture. This approach involves five connected points of view:
- Service: Providing affordable services and resources to help artists and creatives meet immediate needs and navigate challenges like disasters or resource gaps.
- Support: Offering community assistance and advocacy to help individuals and communities move from survival to thriving by addressing systemic barriers and unmet needs.
- Social purpose: Creating pathways to elevate the value of care, working directly with underserved communities to co-create solutions that address their unique challenges.
- Social change: Encouraging collective action and structural reforms to tackle systemic inequities and build a fairer, more inclusive future.
- Social innovation+: Using creative strategies and partnerships to dismantle harmful systems and create lasting, transformative change over longer timelines.
Compared to traditional ASOs, ASO+ organizations take a broader, more impactful approach to strentheing access to care, equity, and transformation in the arts and culture ecosystem. They combine both immediate support and care with long-term change.
What will I do?
Last updated: February 12, 2025
As a fellow, you will spend about 50 hours over three months working on your own creative project and connecting with other fellows, elders, and doulas. Your project can take many forms, such as written text, audio, video, or images with commentary, and more. Through this fellowship, we encourage you to take risks and explore how your creative practices can deepen access to care for yourself, your community, and beyond.
Learn more
Your focus will be on a creative project of your choosing. We ask you to reflect on the impacts of your pandemic experiences (in your own personal and professional life, in your community, or planet wide) while offering ideas to strengthen community access to care in future crises in Ontario. Your project can take many forms:
- Creative journals, essays, blogs, sketches, community research, mind maps, and more
- Desired minimum scope is one of:
- 1,800 to 2,400 words
- 10 to 12 minutes of video or audio with a written summary and transcript
- 5 to 8 images or sketches with a written commentary
- Other meaningful contributions to be explored with the care team
- While all fellowship meetings will take place in English (with ASL/CART available on request), your project may use any other languages you prefer. Ideally, you will be prepared to provide translations in one of Canada’s official languages, English or French.
Your commitments and benefits
- Be paid a $2,000 flat-fee (in three installments of 35% / 30% / 35%, or another distribution upon request). 35% / 30% / 35% = $700 / $600 / $700.
- Engage in visionary group discussions with other fellows, committing to mutual respect and care
- Receive one-on-one mentorship and care from our community elders and doulas
- Contribute a personal project to a collective publication that imagines creative pathways to a caring Ontario in the face of future crises post-pandemic
- The work you produce during the fellowship will remain your own intellectual property
- All creators will be properly credited
- While ArtsPond typically publishes work in the creative commons, fellows are encouraged, but not required, to do the same
- Fellows will grant ArtsPond first and perpetual (but not exclusive) rights to publish the content they approve for publication
- If creative content is to be reproduced for sale, a separate agreement will be made
- Fellows may have their content published elsewhere afterwards if ArtsPond is credited as the original host and publisher.
ArtsPond commitments and benefits
- Support the individual and collective journeys of all fellows
- Cultivate creative connections with fellows from our other initiatives (such as Caring Cultures)
- Ensure the contributions of all fellows are appropriately acknowledged
- Complete a literature review and share knowledge resources with fellows and the public related to the evolution of post-pandemic mutual aid and care in arts and culture
- With your permission, we will:
- Publish all personal projects by fellows in an online repository with translations or interpretations where possible into Fluent and Plain English, French, Sign, and other languages. Your projects may be part of a larger hub of similar material on different topics, including youth-led social change (Caring Cultures), digital justice (Together There), and more. The hub currently in development is hive.artspond.com.
- Reflect upon key suggestions from fellows and adapt them to our emergent Care Plan 2033
- Seek further input on key lessons and suggestions from fellows with 7,250 members of our national pandemic mutual aid network, I Lost My Gig Canada (Facebook)
- Share key recommendations with other stakeholders and the public to help support the continued growth and evolution of post-pandemic mutual aid and care in Ontario in the future
- Seek your guidance on ways to improve this fellowship experience. As a pilot project, we hope to host additional cohorts across Canada after this to help cultivate national perspectives.
Additional details
As a fellow, you will dedicate approximately 50 hours over three months. This includes about 40 to 42 hours of self-directed work, plus 8 to 10 hours of group and one-on-one meetings with other fellows, elders, and doulas.
As a flat-fee contract, we will not be tracking your hours. You will receive the maximum contract amount of $2,000 (plus GST/HST if appropriate) if you attend all meetings and complete a creative project as outlined above. If you are keeping track, this is generally equivalent to about $40 per hour on average, or $1.10 to $1.20 per word, $165 to $200 per minute of audio and video, or $250 to $400 per visual image plus commentary for your project. We are also happy to discuss other possibilities with you. If you do not meet minimum expectations that are agreed upon for your contract, your total compensation may be adjusted to reflect the work completed.
We acknowledge that we are not paying you enough to make fully fleshed out works of art. That is not the purpose of this fellowship. We want to learn from your stories and suggestions for the future. While you may use creative methods to express them, we are more interested in the messages than the means. However, we will be delighted if what you learn and share during the fellowship becomes fodder for new creative artwork in the future.
We issue payments via direct deposit only.
To receive payments, please provide your banking information using our vendor direct deposit online form. Your banking information will be deleted from this online form once it is entered into our accounting system. Alternatively, you may download our vendor direct deposit PDF form and email it to us.
To receive a payment, please send an invoice (and the PDF direct deposit form if you prefer) to finance@artspond.com. Your invoice should include the date, your name, address, GST/HST number if appropriate, invoice number if appropriate, as well as an item description (“I Lost My Gig Ontario, fellowship, installment #”), item amount, and total amount.
Please bill invoices to:
ArtsPond / Étang d’Arts
225-38 Abell Street
Toronto, Ontario M6J 0A2
- February 24, 2025
An offier is sent to invite you to participate in the fellowship. - March 3, 2025
Accept or decline offer to participate in the fellowship.
Sign contract that is emailed to you and send back to us. - March 3-14, 2025
(Optional) Request a meeting with care team to create an individual access and care plan for your fellowship journey, if needed. Meetings can take place March 3-7 and March 10-14.
(Required) Submit direct deposit documents and send invoice to receive first payment. - March 17, 2025
Start of fellowship research and creation.
First payment (35% / $700) deposited upon receive of invoice. Another distribution amount can be requested. - March 19, 2025, 9:30 to 11 am
Opening plenary meeting with all fellows from I Love My Gig Ontario and Caring Cultures. - April 7 to 13, 2025
Personal one-on-one checkin with your care doula, date TBA - April 21, 2025
Second payment (30% / $600) deposited upon receipt of invoice. Another distribution amount can be requested.
- April 23, 2025, 9:30 to 11 am
Midpoint plenary meeting with fellows from I Love My Gig Ontario only. - May 19 to 23, 2025
Personal one-on-one checkin with your care doula, date TBA - June 4, 2025, 9:30 am to 12 pm
Closing plenary meeting with all fellows from I Love My Gig Ontario and Caring Cultures. - June 6, 2025
End of fellowship research and creation. Submit your personal project (preferred deadline). - July 25, 2025
Submit your personal project (final extended deadline).
* Final payment (35% / $700) deposited upon delivery of completed project and receipt of invoice. Another distribution amount can be requested. - October 28, 2025
We share publication preview of your personal project for comments and feedback. Send comments back by November 10, 2025. - November 25, 2025
We share pre-launch preview with all projects for your comments and feedback. Send comments back by January 6, 2026. - January 19, 2026
Launch final publication.
Check the detailed schedule for additional meeting dates and activities, including weekly drop-ins and more. Dates are subject to change.
Please note:
The official fellowship period ends no later than July 25, 2025, but there are a few tasks after this date. This includes 1 to 2 hours to review and provide feedback on pre-publication previews of your work. We are applying for additional funding in March 2025, with results expected in August 2025. If successful, we will extend your contract to pay for this review time and host an additional gathering for all fellows to reconnect and share feedback together. For now, we ask that you save about an hour from your current contract for this review.
| Week | Dates | Self-directed focus | Meetings | Activities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Feb 24 to Mar 16 | Preparing | Request a meeting with the care team if you would like to discuss a plan to support you before the fellowship starts. | Prepare for the start of the fellowship. Review welcome guide. Confirm with the care team any access and care needs you have to be able to participate fully in the program. Review and sign contract, confirm desired payment schedule, and provide direct deposit details to receive first payment. |
| 1 | Mar 17 to 23 | Orienting | Opening plenary Mar 19, 9:30 to 11 am (Required) | Orient yourself to your fellowship journey. Identify any questions you have about the fellowship. Consider what you want to get out of this experience. Think about what topics your personal project will focus on. Participate in the required opening plenary that will introduce you to other fellows and provide guidance on how you may approach your fellowship journey. Schedule timee for your personal 30-minute one-on-one check-ins with your care doula in Weeks 4 and 10. While not required, consider making a plan to come to a few of the Drop-ins for additional support between your check-ins. That way, things will not build up too much and your check-ins will not be as stressful. |
| 2 | Mar 24 to 30 | Research: Seeking | Group Care Drop-in Mar 26, 10 to 11 am (Optional) | Begin seeking out the stories, questions, materials, and knowledge you want to dive into over the course of the fellowship. Gather anything that interests or inspires you, whether they might feel relevant to your chosen topic(s) or not. Try to trust your intuition. Participate in the optional drop-in to give and receive care with your peers. It is a casual meetup to get to know each other better and discuss anything that is coming up for you in a supportive environment. |
| 3 | Mar 31 to Apr 6 | Research: Sensemaking | Group Share Drop-in Apr 2, 10 to 11 am (Optional) | Take a look at everything you gathered in Week 2. Try to identify what they are telling you. Start to prioritize those with the most potential to support your project topics and explore them a bit further. Identify what is missing. Try to make sense of any unknowns, challenges, or biases. Participate in the optional drop-in to discuss your ideas and questions with your peers. |
| 4 | Apr 7 to 13 | Creation: Seeding | Personal Care Check-in 30 minutes, date and time TBA (Required) | Take another look at everything you have gathered and learned in the past 3 weeks. Consider which confirms and which challenges your original assumptions. Think about how you will express and share what you are learning with others. If you have not already done so, start experimenting or sketching out your ideas in tangible ways. Make tweaks to your project plan based on your emerging insights. Participate in the first of two personal check-ins with your care doula in order to share updates and receive any guidance you require. |
| 5 | Apr 14 to 20 | Research: Shaping | Group Care Drop-in Apr 16, 10 to 11 am (Optional) | |
| 6 | Apr 21 to 27 | Creation: Growing | Midpoint plenary Apr 23, 9:30 to 11 am (Required) | |
| 7 | Apr 28 to May 4 | Research: Stewarding | Group Share Drop-in Apr 30, 10 to 11 am (Optional) | |
| 8 | May 5 to 11 | Creation: Cultivating | Group Care Drop-in May 7, 10 to 11 am (Optional) | |
| 9 | May 12 to 18 | Research: Sharing | Group Share Drop-in May 14, 10 to 11 am (Optional) | |
| 10 | May 19 to 25 | Creation: Harvesting | Personal Care Check-in 30 minutes, date and time TBA (Required) | |
| 11 | May 26 to Jun 1 | Research-Creation: Sustaining | Group Share Drop-in May 28, 10 to 11 am (Optional) | |
| 12 | Jun 2 to 6 | Research-Creation: Harmonizing | Closing plenary Jun 4, 9:30 to 12 pm (Required) |
If you have OCD like us, free research tools like Zotero (a bibliography manager) can be a huge help for managing and citing knowledge resources. We will be sharing an open repository of good reads and other resources in Zotero as a part of this project. So you might want to try it out for yourself.
Other free tools to consider for notetaking and visual mapping include Obsidian, Notion, Miro, and more. You will receive a free Microsoft 365 account with us during the fellowship and for a period of 12 months after. It includes 1 TB of personal storage and applications like OneNote that can be useful for notetaking.
If your project features a visual timeline in some capacity, a free project like Timeline JS can be a beautiful option powered by a Google Sheet. No coding needed. We have a Virtual Private Server for our websites and can easily host this kind of option for you.
We have pro accounts to software programs like ChatGPT, Miro, Zoom, Airtable, Adobe Creative Cloud, Ableton Live 12, Cubase 13, Max 7, along with a few broadcast quality video cameras, microphones, projectors, and such. With enough notice, we are able to loan out some of this equipment or provide access to software for your creative activities.
We have a budget for an omnimedia designer that can provide some input on your production needs. We will also be bringing in experts who have experience around accessibility measures for multimedia content online that will be available to provide advice and support.
We focus this journey on three key questions, exploring the past, present, and future:
- Past
What did you learn about giving and receiving care during the pandemic? - Present
What care do you need (or want to offer) right now to help prepare for the next big crisis? - Future
How do you want your creative life and career to help lead or support positive change and care in the future?
The majority of this fellowship is self-directed. There will be a limited number of opportunities to collaborate with other fellows during the group meetings. These include the three required opening, midpoint, and closing plenaries, plus the optional semi-weekly care and share drop-ins.
We encourage you to reach out and connect with other fellows on your own time as much as possible. However, we will not be able to pay you for this time.
For those that are interested, we would enjoy staying connecting and meeting with you on a more casual, volunteer basis after the fellowship is over. This could be a few times a year or other schedule depending on interest.
You can read more about our Care Team here. You can email the entire Care Team at care@artspond.com. This is probably the quickest way to get an answer to your question, but it can also flood all of our team’s inboxes. Instead, you can contact individual team members for specific topics, as listed below.
- General questions (meetings schedules, agendas, notes, access support requests)
Email: Rana - Financial questions (contracts, invoices, deposits)
Email: Jessa - Care questions (your creative journey and project)
Email: Contact the Care Doula that has been assigned to you in your Welcome Email. - Creative questions (overall project vision, mandate, purpose, goals, objectives)
Email: Jessa
- Complaints (if you experience a problem with another participant or staff that you want resolved)
Email: Jessa, or if you prefer not to talk to staff, you can email our Board of Directors
How do I care?
Last updated: February 12, 2025
Are you looking for some tools and practices to help you with your fellowship journey? Below are some of the internal practices we have developed to help deepen our understanding of complexity, crisis, change, creation, care, and other issues in arts and culture. Choose a few (even randomly) and explore how they might help organize your thoughts and ideas.
Learn more
Wisdom Well is a practice for deepening wisdom and knowledge. As an alternative to traditional research, it features five streams that help ensure that the legacies of wisdom are valued, protected, and shared in meaningful ways. While they will each ideally happen all at once, beginners can go through them one at a time to better understand how they work together.
Path Well is a practice designed to identify and prioritize the stories and dreams of various groups across different levels of connection and experience. It includes the following:
- People (individuals)
Focuses on the needs and stories of individuals in their personal, family, and professional lives. - Populations (groups)
Includes diverse groups of people, organizations, and other informal or formal collectives. - Places (spaces)
Examines real, virtual, natural, and other spaces, including those that are seen, hidden, contested, imaginary, or forgotten. - Publics (communities)
Considers larger shared environments like cities, municipalities, and public spaces where people gather and interact. - Planet (systems)
Looks at environmental and systemic connections that shape the wellbeing of all living things on a global scale.
Revolution Well is a practice to help identify the barriers that make it hard to thrive and those that are working toward positive change and fairness. The five aspects include:
- Roots (systemic causes)
Roots are the deep problems in systems like arts and culture, caused by things like unfair policies, discrimination, and lack of support. Understanding these hidden causes helps us figure out why harm and inequality happen. - Ripples (gobal impacts)
Ripples are the effects of these problems spreading out, like waves in water. They show how issues like poverty or cultural loss affect communities locally and globally. - Responses (ecosystem reactions)
Responses are how people and communities react to these problems. Some responses are positive, like coming together to help, while others can be negative, like stress or division. Looking at these reactions helps us learn how people deal with challenges. - Remedies (community solutions)
Remedies are the solutions communities create to fix problems. These could be new ideas, helping others, or changing policies to make things fairer and better for everyone. - Resources (individual leaders)
Resources are the people who lead the way with creativity and care. These leaders, like artists or activists, inspire others and show what is possible when we work for positive change.
Demand Well is a practice for exploring both immediate and long-term needs for care. It focuses on five key areas:
- Disasters
Urgent crises or emergencies that disrupt systems and require immediate care and action. - Deserts
Situations where resources are scarce, communities face shortfalls, or essential supports are unavailable. - Dailies
Everyday needs and experiences, whether positive or challenging, that shape daily life and learning. - Doulas
Examples of care and support currently making a positive impact in the present. - Desires
Aspirations and dreams for improved care and support in the future.
Activate Well is a practice focuses on cultivating meaningful action to build fairer, more inclusive, and connected communities. It includes five elements:
- Belonging
Creating spaces where everyone feels welcomed, valued, and part of the community. - Inclusion
Actively involving diverse voices and perspectives in all activities and decisions. - Diversity
Celebrating and respecting differences in identities, experiences, and ideas. - Equity
Ensuring fair opportunities and resources for all, especially for those facing barriers. - Access
Removing obstacles to participation and making spaces, resources, and opportunities available to everyone.
Life Well explores the interconnected realms that shape our experiences and understanding of the world. It inclues five viewpoints:
- Real life (IRL)
The tangible, everyday environments where we live, work, and connect. - Virtual life (IVL)
Digital and online spaces that expand how we communicate and create. - Natural life (INL)
The ecosystems and landscapes that sustain life and inspire care for the planet. - Dream life (IDL)
Imagined or aspirational spaces that foster creativity, hope, and future possibilities. - Ancestral life (IAL)
The wisdom, traditions, and legacies passed down through generations that guide and ground us.
Care Well (Action) focuses on building a foundation of fairness, connection, and wellnesss through five guiding principles:
- Rights
Upholding the inherent rights of all individuals to dignity, equity, and justice. - Respect
Valuing the experiences, identities, and contributions of others with care and understanding. - Reconciliation
Addressing past harms and working to rebuild trust and relationships. - Reparation
Taking responsibility and making amends for injustices to promote healing and equity. - Reciprocity
Creating relationships rooted in mutual care, shared benefit, and balanced exchange.
- Careseeker (the receiver)
You are someone who receives care from others. You may feel that the world is uncertain, and you focus on your immediate needs to feel safe and secure. Your experiences with self-care and seeking support can provide valuable insights to others who are working to create positive changes. - Caretaker (the protector)
You are someone who protects access to care for yourself and others. You focus on addressing present challenges while preparing for future needs. You bring people together to safeguard care, though you may face difficulties due to limited resources or knowledge. With the right support, you can help guide essential changes for a better future. - Caregiver (the nurturer)
You are someone who gives care to others. You see the world as hopeful and focus on helping individuals and small groups thrive in the short term. While you may feel overburdened at times, your patience and empathy inspire others and ensure that critical care continues. - Caremaker (the builder)
You are someone who creates and builds systems of care. You focus on long-term goals, working to create conditions where individuals and communities can thrive. You push for meaningful change and inspire others with your creativity and dedication, even when facing resistance. - Careshaper (the visionary)
You are someone who envisions and inspires new ways of providing care. You see both the challenges and possibilities in the world and focus on creating solutions that address long-term needs across generations. You guide and motivate others to imagine a better future, helping to shape systems of care that sustain everyone.
Justice Well explores pathways to fairness and equity by addressing five interconnected areas of justice:
- Spatial
Ensuring fair use and access to physical spaces, including land, housing, and public areas. - Socioeconomic
Tackling economic inequalities and creating opportunities for financial stability and prosperity. - Environmental
Protecting the planet and promoting sustainable practices for current and future generations. - Disability / Accessibility
Removing barriers and creating inclusive environments where everyone can participate fully. - Digital
Advocating for equitable access to technology, online spaces, and digital tools.