Aiming to continuously rethink and re-examine the scope and the boundaries of “curating architecture,” the CCA solicits ideas for projects that take innovative curatorial approaches and experimental formats.

The Emerging Curator Residency Program offers the opportunity to propose and curate a project at the CCA related to contemporary debates in architecture, urban issues, landscape design, and cultural and social dynamics while completing a residency at the CCA.

The CCA encourages a wide range of proposals for curatorial projects with a broad scope. Proposals must bring an innovative curatorial model to the contemporary discourse on architecture. The CCA seeks proposals that use the curatorial project as a tool to foster ideas, question relevant positions, introduce new research themes, and critique current modalities, with the ultimate goal of advancing new thinking for architecture and the built environment. Particular attention will be given to projects that intend to locate the discourse of architecture within a broader context across disciplines and practices, and that also point to overlooked areas of knowledge or engage with plural and diverse voices.

The output of the proposal may follow many trajectories, and the result may be as varied as an editorial project, a program of seminars and research colloquiums, a series of public events or workshops, a collection-based project, the production of content for the web and social media, a documentary film, or a physical or virtual exhibition. Interdisciplinary and collaborative practices are encouraged. The proposal must be explicit about the choice and relationship of format with content.

The Emerging Curator Residency Program includes a mentorship period that ensures the final candidates’ understanding of CCA culture and curatorial procedures. The CCA will select three finalists who will be mentored remotely by the CCA curatorial team over a two-month period in September–October 2026. During this time, the finalists will fine-tune their project proposal and receive constructive feedback. At the end of this two-month period, the CCA will re-evaluate the three projects and choose one that the CCA will develop and produce in collaboration with the selected Emerging Curator. The other two finalists whose projects will not be realized will have the opportunity to publish their research on the CCA website. The CCA Emerging Curator Residency Program is an occasion for motivated individuals who seek experience in reflecting on the role of architecture discourse within the context of a cultural institution. The selected candidate will be asked to complete a three-month residency at the CCA to develop and implement the project with the CCA team.

During the residency, the candidate will become further acquainted with the CCA’s institutional knowledge and vision, explore the institution’s resources and the collection holdings, and develop their curatorial vision to produce the proposed project. The CCA will provide guidance towards the project’s realization. The residency should take place between January 2027 and June 2027. The project should be completed by the end of 2028.

The CCA Emerging Curator Residency Program aims to nurture a new generation of cultural practitioners who are builders of institutions and communities.

The call for applications opens on 2 February 2026 and the deadline for applications is 9 March 2026 by 5pm EDT.

Architects, journalists, designers, critics, historians, photographers, artists, and other scholars and professionals thirty (30) years of age or younger on 1 January 2026 are eligible for this program, regardless of citizenship and place of residence.*

The three finalists will receive a support fee of CAD 1,000 for their participation during the mentorship period (approx. 10 hours/week over two months). The final recipient will receive CAD 12,000 to cover travel, housing, and living expenses for a three-month residency in Montréal. These payments are subject to the income tax laws of Canada and Quebec. The production cost of the project will be funded by CCA. The languages in use at the CCA are English and French.

Collective or collaborative projects are welcome; however, CCA’s financial support will remain the same and will need to be shared among the collective.

All submissions must be new projects, never before presented, published, or realized.

The scope of the project and specific timing of the residency will be determined in consultation with members of CCA’s curatorial committee. No more than one project per applicant will be accepted.

*Applicants who do not meet the eligibility criteria of this program and who wish to submit a curatorial project to the CCA may do so by sending their project to curatorialopportunities@cca.qc.ca.

Projects received will be evaluated by the CCA Curatorial Committee.

Applications should be submitted through the CCA online application portal and include the following information, in English or French (PDF files no larger than 5MB):

1) A curatorial statement (1,000 to 1,500 words, with no more than ten images), including the description of the project and a strategic justification. This document must also present the curatorial vision and the chosen format clearly;

2) A curriculum vitae detailing education, research, and professional experience, working languages, and any other relevant information;

3) A representative selection of realized projects that convey an impression of the candidate’s distinct approach;

4) Contact information for two academic or professional references who are familiar with the candidate and their work.

Only applications submitted through the online application portal will be accepted.

The CCA will select finalists according to the following criteria: originality of the curatorial statement and approach, relevance to architectural thinking and practice, expertise and trajectory of the candidate, feasibility, and relevance to the curatorial direction and vision of the CCA.

The CCA will notify all applicants in May 2026.

A final agreement will be effective only after the selected recipient has obtained all required authorization from the immigration authorities of both Quebec and Canada.

For more information, please send an email to curatorialopportunities@cca.qc.ca.

The diversity of our institution is at the core of our creativity and strengthens our research efforts. While all qualified candidates are invited to apply, we particularly welcome applications from persons with disabilities, Indigenous, Black, and other people of colour, of all genders, and LGBTQ+ persons. Candidates are encouraged to self-identify in their application (CV or cover letter). Applicants who require accommodations for any part of the application process can contact [vsamson@cca.qc.ca] (mailto: vsamson@cca.qc.ca) to receive confidential assistance.

This program is generously supported by the Power Corporation of Canada.

As of 2021 the Emerging Curator Residency Program replaces the Emerging Curator Program, which the CCA had offered since 2011.

2024–2025

Andy Lu Lee, New York, USA

American Remediation investigates the constructed and projected nature of the American landscape through archival and film media. The project explores how Cold War-era US Department of the Interior films shaped and constructed the perception of American infrastructure abroad. These films portrayed US projects as symbols of consumerism and desire, veiling their role in advancing settler-colonial and extractivist agendas. By revisiting and re-presenting this archival footage in dialogue with contemporary film from Mexico and Colombia, American Remediation invites critical discourse vis-à-vis questions concerning the environment and coloniality.

Co-finalists (mentorship phase):

Umi Graham and Janelle Woo, Architects, Sydney, Australia

Beware of dandelions! proposes curatorial interventions that examine the subversive and punk power of “cuteness” as an aesthetic category in architectural discourse. The project seeks to explore the subversive nature of seemingly innocuous, small and “cute” interventions in otherwise very serious spaces. By focusing on rebellious acts of cuteness in architecture, with specific interest in the Asia-Pacific region since the 1980’s, Beware of dandelions! seeks to understand the enduring influence of “cute” on contemporary architectural culture and politics. By exploring the agency of the cuteness—vis-à-vis disruptive gestures that challenge dominant narratives in the discipline—Beware of dandelions! offers a soft but insistent critique, and highlights a form of architecture that resists grand narratives and privileges instead the small-scale, ephemeral, and often DIY interventions.

Alfonse Chiu, MED Candidate, New Haven, USA and Sheau Yun Lim, MArch Candidate, Cambridge, USA

Double double/oil and trouble examines architectures of the extractive regimes of petrocapital and palm oil extraction in eastern Borneo. Through book-object installations, the project investigates how oil and its derivatives transfigure land, labour, and geopolitics—mapping plantation grids as horizontal fields of commodification against the verticality of oil rigs. In tandem, the project spotlights a crucial counter-relation and definition of capital spaces through gestures and direct acts of resistance by Indigenous actors whose customary lands and waterways have been impacted by the seamless flow of oil and oleaginous desires. By drawing attention to the visual rhetorics and spatial strategies of resistance, such as protest illustrations and situated knowledge of native agro-ecologies, Double, double/oil and trouble seeks to examine the possibilities for productive, justice-driven work that responds fundamentally to the logical operation of extraction as a relationality.

2023–2024

Yutong Lin, MA, Montréal, Canada

In the form of collaborative bookmaking and publishing, the curatorial project Zomia Garden considers the legacy of botanical exploration during the 1920s–1940s as an entry point for approaching trans-Himalayan geography through the knowledge of plants, landscapes, and ways of habitation. This project will seek to initiate dialogues with emergent artists and writers from the region, prompting different practices of translations.

Co-finalists (mentorship phase):

Batoul Faour, MArch, Beirut, Lebanon
Glass Politics seeks to examine the following: how can a critical biography of glass allow for a different type of reading of a city as politically complex as Beirut? The project will expand the conversation on glass and violence beyond Beirut and across different conflict-prone geographies to construct a collective psychology of destruction around this material. The project will also explore broader themes of architecture’s vicinity to violence, the possibilities of reconstitution, and questions of self-preservation through it.

Anoushka Mariwala, MArch, New York, USA
Architectures of Rice hopes to examine how the agrarian is mapped, preserved, contested, and enacted in the context of rice production in India and Bangladesh to create an expanded understanding of the connection between resources and labour. The project hopes to create a toolkit to encourage the examination of food production systems globally.

2022–2023

Clarissa Lim Kye Lee, Cultural Worker, Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R., and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Making Mamak begins with two premises: First, art and cultural collectives operate within the precarity of capital-valued space. Second, through care and friendship, collectives rebuild found spaces for art and cultural production. Situated in Malaysia, this project solicits secrets from collective members by documenting the informal architectural adjustments they make, and subsequently creates a digital hacker kit for cultural workers everywhere to shape their spaces.

Co-finalists (mentorship phase):

Thuto Durkac-Somo, Writer, New York, United States
Personal Home Computing researches material and theoretical precedents for contemporary Smart Homes. The research traces the marketing promise of computers improving domestic labor simultaneous to innovations in tracking human data via motion sensors and digital cameras. This project addresses the dehumanizing effects of domestic tracking technology. The final format of this research proposes to produce a home-as-computer environment, making the hidden data operations visible.

Jola Idowu, Student/Designer, Chicago, United States
Contrary to Common Beliefs explores the potential of protest as a precedent for the architecture and design of the urban city. The project is sited in the City of Chicago, and investigates the strategies and tactics utilized in the George Floyd Protest, the first protest in Chicago to have the involvement of the national guard since 1968. Through this research, the project proposes a collaboration between activists and designers to create speculative prototypes towards reorganizing and infiltrating the city for the purpose of covert and overt practices and objects in support of civil disobedience.

2021-2022

Joyce Joumaa, Video Artist, Tripoli (Lebanon), Montreal (Canada)
In 1962, the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer was invited to conceive an international fairground in the city of Tripoli, Lebanon, which was never completed. Fragments of Collapse is a documentary film that employs archival materials, interviews, and research notes to look at how architecture operates in this failed state. By examining the precarity of the project site that remains to this day, the film also reflects on the country’s current socioeconomic crisis.

Co-finalists (mentorship phase):

Exutoire (Quy Son, Bui & Paul-Antoine, Lucas), Architects, Oslo, Norway
A Queer Practice of Architecture looks towards an architecture of otherness to investigate the act of queering architecture—a practice characterized by the challenging of norms and normativity. It seeks to deconstruct the profession’s established framework to create alternative futures in which self-expression and self-definition are inalienable. The project aims to frame queering space, a neither utopian nor abstract concept, as an active, tangible process—a way of seeing, thinking, and making architecture.

Samia Kayyali, Architect/Landscape Architect, Amman, Jordan
On Architecture and Abundance explores how representational tools in architecture are complicit in manufacturing a promise of abundance through the colonial logic of infinite expansion. Informed by writings and theory on representational tools, relational ethics, and the reflexive turn first mapped out in cultural anthropology, the project aims to collectively produce an online resource, designed as a studio syllabus plug-in, to confront the logic of these tools as they are currently taught and learned.

As of 2021 the Emerging Curator Residency Program replaced the Emerging Curator Program, which the CCA had offered since 2011.