Supercrawl 2023 Call For Artists

 

Supercrawl is a free annual outdoor art and music festival held in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, showcasing a diverse and dynamic lineup of music, art, fashion, performance, talks, crafts, food and fun. In 2022, Supercrawl covered 20 city blocks and attracted more than 275,000 visitors over the course of the weekend. Organizers look forward to building upon that foundation at this fall’s festival — Supercrawl’s 15th anniversary — taking place September 8-10, 2023 on James Street North.

Calls for Artists for the 2023 edition of  Supercrawl have now closed. Thanks to all who applied.

Please do not contact organizers regarding the results of your application before they are communicated to you. When decisions are made, you will be contacted.

Please do not telephone, text, direct message, or use social media comments for artist-related requests/communications. All official communications will be conducted via email only.

Follow our socials (Instagram, FacebookTwitter) or watch our website for more details!

Supercrawl was founded out of a desire to showcase the city’s cultural vibrancy and eclectic arts landscape, and remains dedicated to honouring, showcasing and celebrating all varieties of creative work. Supercrawl prioritizes curating a diverse and representative festival lineup. We recognize our responsibility to amplify voices that have traditionally been marginalized, both in our community and in society as a whole.

Supercrawl is committed to inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. We strive to create an environment in which all participants may flourish. We are committed to removing systemic barriers to access and opportunity, and welcome artistic proposals from all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, or economic status. We welcome submissions from artists of all backgrounds, including but not limited to Indigenous, Black, people of colour, 2SLGBTQIA+, women, people with disabilities, and members of equity-seeking communities.

_

Top: Lido Pimienta at Supercrawl 2022 

Supercrawl Reveals Expanded 2022 Lineup

Supercrawl is proud to unveil the expanded lineup for the 2022 free festival weekend, taking place September 9-11, 2022 along James Street North in downtown Hamilton, Ontario and presented by sponsor TD Bank Group (TD).

Supercrawl returns to James Street North with a stellar lineup that includes musical performances from headliners Tim BakerThe Dirty Nil, Hamilton Superstars, Sarah Harmer, Lido Pimienta, and Charlotte Day Wilson, as well as Altameda, Tynomi Banks, The Barettas, Blind Mule, Breeze, Nuela Charles, Dearly Beloved, Ellevator, Espanola, Fame Cartel, Golden Feather, Sarah Good & The Bads, Hamilton Children’s ChoirHamilton Philharmonic Orchestra Brass Quintet, The Hidden Cameras, Cam Kahin, Shawnee Kish, LOONY, Loviet, Olivia Lunny, Eamon McGrath, Nezqwik, Northern Cree, OMBIIGIZI, Lydia Persaud, Lido Pimienta, Pleasure Craft, Queen Cee with GSSO and Duckai, Amanda Rheaume, Tallies, Julian Taylor, TRP.P, and JJ Wilde.

Supercrawl 2022 will also feature an interactive residency from Pittsburgh’s post-industrial art rock performance troupe Squonk, who will bring their touring production “Hand to Hand” to the festival for shows on September 10 and 11. This don’t-miss event, a rare international date, will be only the second time Squonk has staged “Hand to Hand” in Canada.

This year’s festival will also feature visual and performance art from Asli Alin, All Our Relations Collective, Mary Anne Barkhouse, Kiera Boult, Dawn Hackett Burns, Joseph Farrugia, Melissa General, Skawennati, and Brandon Vickerd.

Supercrawl 2022 will host fashion showcases from Ark Collective, Ashes, Domenication, Dope Chief, The Eye of Faith, Heart Collector, Kiki’s Closets, Leave Your Mark, M218, sariKNOTsari, Shedo, The Thrifty Designer, Tout Sweet Vintage, True Hamiltonian and more, in addition to the always sensational Sapphyre Poison Drag Extravaganza.

Festival-goers will also enjoy Theatre + Dance from Alegria Dance Company, Defining Movement Dance, David Hudson Dance Company, Monica Plant x Jungle Ling, Society for the Prevention of Spectacle, Tommy Taylor, and Eshe Yildiz, as well as a weekend-long Authors + Talks roster featuring Charlie Angus, Sifton Tracey Anipare, Michael Barclay, Gary Barwin, Ralph Benmergui, Nic Brewer, Sally Cooper, Terri Favro, Sydney Hegele, Lorraine Johnson, Jon-Erik Lappano, Eddie Lartey, Fareh Malik, Judith McCormack, Robert McGill, Sheila Murray, Aimee Reid, Jamie Tennant and other great readers, plus Friday-night local author signings with Gary Barwin, David Collier, Denise Davy, Jaclyn Desforges, Margaret Nowaczyk, Benjamin Robinson, Brent van Staalduinen and more.

Supercrawl will also offer dozens of food trucks, scores of craft vendors, plus a Family Zone packed with creative options for children and youth. Announcements on all three, as well as festival schedule and map, will follow in the days and weeks ahead.

Supercrawl is a free, not-for-profit outdoor music and arts festival that showcases the cultures, businesses and creative people in Hamilton’s downtown core. It is both an acclaimed tourist event with national profile and a celebration of the city’s creative vitality. On an annual and ongoing basis, Supercrawl provides opportunities to local artists and performers, showcasing them alongside their regional, national and international peers.

Supercrawl Productions gratefully acknowledges that the organization received a non-repayable contribution of $250,000 through the Government of Canada’s Tourism Relief Fund, delivered by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), to help expand and add activities to the Supercrawl Festival to increase tourist attendance.

Supercrawl Productions, Sonic Unyon Records, Music Cities Events, and the City of Hamilton present the fourth global edition of the Music Cities Forum at Bridgeworks (200 Caroline St. N., Hamilton) on September 7 & 8, 2022. Featuring talks and presentations, live music and networking opportunities, the Forum will explore how the city’s growing and diverse music scene fits into the city’s plans for economic and social development. With Canada being the eighth largest music market in the world,  Ontario is a consistent leader in the national music industry, home to 44% of the nation’s music publishing and recording jobs. Hamilton’s local music scene is a growing, dynamic and eclectic mix of songwriters, musicians, producers, performers and live performances. The city is  increasingly known as a destination for music, and boasts a strong, collaborative and diverse music industry that offers a solid base for continued growth, collaboration and celebration. MCF speakers will include Ace Piva (Tour Manager, Addiction Recovery Coach and Mental Health Advocate), Adesegun Adeosum (CEO & Founder, Made Entertainment), Anders Kastrup Christensen (Head of Partners, Nus Nus & Distortion), Astrid Hepner (Founder & CEO, Hamilton Music Collective), Debbie Spence (Business Development Consultant, Creative Industries, City of Hamilton), Jonathan Bunce (Artistic & Executive Director, Wavelength Music), Lisa La Rocca (Director of Operations, Sonic Unyon Records), Matthew Peterson (Programs Manager, Transitmatters), Mike Tanner (Manager, Music Sector Development, City of Toronto), Sarah Falzon (Lawyer, Taylor Oballa Murray Leyland, LLP), and Tim Potocic (President & Owner, Sonic Unyon Records) among others. For more MCF information and event tickets, click here or visit  musiccitiesevents.com.

Supercrawl Unveils New Public Art for 2021-2022

Supercrawl is pleased to announce the unveiling of two large-scale public works of art now on display in downtown Hamilton. On October 28, 2021, Nitewaké:non, a work by artist Melissa General, was installed on the south facade of 118 James Street North. Only a few steps away, Mary Anne Barkhouse‘s Dominion was installed in a new location, on the south facade of 91 James Street North, on November 17, 2021. Each artwork, while distinct and complex, also relates to each other by the themes they address, including: relationships to each other, family, home and community, the land, water, plants, and the natural world, as well as history, identity, and language honouring memory inherently rooted in a place — empire, colonialism, and survival.

The artworks are presented as part of Supercrawl’s 2021 Visual & Public Art programming and will be on display for a year. Nitewaké:non is sponsored by the McMaster Museum of Art (MMA) and is presented in collaboration with the enawendewin/relationships project at the MMA, curated by William Kingfisher. Considering gardens as sites of learning and creation, enawendewin/relationships brings together contemporary artists who integrate Indigenous knowledge with practical concerns in the everyday. The multidisciplinary project is informed by themes including growing food as sovereignty, methods for contemporary living, and how our local is affected by global concerns. enawendewin/relationships is on view at the MMA and across sites in Hamilton through November 28, 2021. For more information, click here.

 

Image of Melissa General's 2014 chromogenic print entitled Nitewaké:non

Detail of Nitewaké:non; image courtesy of the artist

Melissa General

Nitewaké:non, 2014, chromogenic print

Artist Statement: Nitewaké:non, “the place where I come from,” examines my relationship to land by exploring the history in my home, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. It is through this exploration on and with the land that I attempt to connect with and honour the memory inherently rooted in Six Nations Territory.

Biography: Melissa General is a Mohawk artist from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design and received a Masters of Fine Arts degree from York University. She is a multidisciplinary artist working in photography, audio, video and installation. Her practice is focused on her home territory of Six Nations and the concepts of memory, language, and land. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Lamont Gallery, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Harbourfront Centre, Stride Gallery, Gallery 101, Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography and has been included in the 2016 Contemporary Native Art Biennial in Montréal. She is a Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL – Indigenous Art Award laureate and was named as the 2018 Ontario Arts Council Indigenous Arts Award Emerging Artist Laureate. Melissa is a recipient of a 2021 Artist Prize from Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts.

Nitewaké:non was part of the MAWA-produced Resilience Project.

Image of Mary Anne Barkhouse's 2011 artwork Dominion, an ink jet print on Somerset paper

Image courtesy of the artist

Mary Anne Barkhouse

Dominion, 2011, inkjet print on Somerset paper

Artist Statement: Opening lines from the Book of Genesis set the stage for millenniums’ worth of misguided notions around authority by presuming, as it does, to offer humanity sweeping powers over everything that soars, scuttles, swims, slithers, climbs, gallops, hops, springs, ambles, digs, jumps, flutters or trots.  Regardless, the numerous creatures found in air and sea, forest and fen, carry on. They are not oblivious to our actions, but they continue… despite our actions. Salvation, for the undomesticated, comes not through something magically bestowed by rhetorical fiction or fairy dust,  but by their own agency. And Nature’s response to the passage from the Book of Genesis? ” … as if.”

Biography: Mary Anne Barkhouse was born in Vancouver, BC but has strong ties to both coasts as her mother is from the Nimpkish band, Kwakiutl First Nation of Alert Bay, BC and her father is of German and  British descent from Nova Scotia. She is a descendant of a long line of internationally recognized Northwest Coast artists that includes Ellen Neel, Mungo Martin and Charlie James. She graduated with Honours from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and has exhibited widely across Canada and the United States. As a result of personal and family experience with land and water stewardship, Barkhouse’s work examines ecological concerns and intersections of culture through the use of animal imagery. Inspired by issues surrounding empire and survival, Barkhouse creates installations that evoke consideration of the self as a response to history and environment. A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Barkhouse’s work can be found in numerous collections such as the National Gallery of Canada, Remai Modern in Saskatoon and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta. In addition she has public art installations in many cities across Canada, most recently in ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ Indigenous Art Park (Edmonton, AB), the Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau, QC), and Carleton University (Ottawa, ON). Barkhouse currently resides in the Haliburton Highlands of Ontario.  maryannebarkhouse.ca

••

ABOUT SUPERCRAWL

A not-for-profit arts organization situated within the traditional territories of the Erie, Chonnonton (Neutral), Wendat, Mississauga, and Haudenosaunee nations, Supercrawl is committed to honouring, showcasing and celebrating all varieties of creative work. Positioning local and emerging artists alongside significant provincial, national and international peers, the festival fosters and promotes arts and culture as well as the myriad benefits they provide.

Presented by TD Bank Group (TD) as part of the TD Ready Commitment to amplify diverse voices, Supercrawl is Hamilton’s premier multi-arts festival, fusing new and independent music with art installations, fashion, performance, literature, theatre, and artisanal craft. Supercrawl’s diverse multi-disciplinary program of sound, performance, visual and media arts is staged along a pedestrian-only creative corridor in the heart of downtown.

Since 2010, Supercrawl’s Visual Arts programming has showcased upwards of 100 artists and featured visual art installations in a variety of media. Supercrawl provides opportunities to local, regional and national artists and performers at both early and established stages of their practices. An annual call for submissions is issued to invite proposals from artists working in a variety of media, and art-lovers will also find roughly two dozen gallery spaces and artists’ studios in and around Supercrawl’s neighbourhood.

Supercrawl was shortlisted for a 2019 Ontario Tourism Award of Excellence for Tourism Event of the Year and 2017 Canadian Tourism Award for Event of the Year. The festival received the 2015 Ontario Tourism Award of Excellence for Tourism Event of the Year, and has been recognized as one of Festival and Events Ontario’s Top 100 Festivals/Events for six consecutive years (2015-2020). Supercrawl is a member organization of the Major International Festivals and Events Network of Ontario, the Canadian Music Live Association, and Festivals and Events Ontario.

James Street North: Neighbourhood of the Arts

A PLACE WHERE CREATIVITY LIVES

Since 2010, Supercrawl has showcased visual art installations in a variety of media, including projects and artwork by Hiba Abdallah, Kim Adams, Donna Akrey, Mark Ainslie, Jaime Angelopoulos, Sonny Assu, C.R. Avery, Nedda Baba, Mary Anne Barkhouse, Sarah Beck, Monique Aura Bedard, Beehive Craft Collective, Connor Bennett, BGL, Adam David Brown, Lea Bucknell, Tia Cavanagh, Tracie ChingJefferson Campbell-Cooper, Roy Caussy, Clear Eyes Collective, David Collier, Vanessa Crosbie Ramsay, Adrienne Crossman, Nathan Cyprys, Marco D’Andrea, Shayne Dark, Tanya Davis, Sara DeckJohn Dickson, Eric Drass, dpai architecture, Dean Drever, Jason EdmistonEn Masse, Justin EricksonSimon Frank, Jason Freiburger, Melissa General, Shlomi Greenspan, Group of 7 Billion, Ann Marie Hadcock, Anitra Hamilton, John Haney, Adad Hannah, Sandi Hartling, Alexa Hatanaka, Robert HengeveldDave Hind, Natalie Hunter, Alex Jacobs-Blum, Erika James, Carey Jernigan, Thea Jones, Svava Thordis Juliusson, kírkē, Jason Krugman, Gareth Lichty, Tor Lukasik-Foss, Drew MacEachern, ​Vincent MarconeKelly Mark, Laura Marotta, Sean Martindale, Christopher McLeod, ​Nancy Anne McPhee, Andrew McPhail, Robert Michael, Zeke Moores, Amber Helene Müller St. ThomasMarie-Jeanne Musiol, Shelley Niro, Susy Oliveira, Andrew Owen, Patrick Paine, Megan PressMark Prier, Sean Procyk, Nathalie Quagliotto, Red Tree Collective, Paige ReynoldsJim Riley,​ Mitch Robertson, Matt Rogalsky, Al RuntShake-n-Make, Chris Shepherd, Coral Short, Site 3 Fire Arts, St Marie φ Walker, Jordyn Stewart, Kyle Stewart, Max Streicher, Kearon Roy Taylor, Tyler Tekatch, Reece Terris, TH&B, Alison Thompson, Patrick Thompson, Matt Ryan Tobin, Kevin TongJosé Luis Torres, Brandon VickerdMatthew Walker, C. Wells, Elinor Whidden, Peter Michael Wilson, Tom Wilson, and Shellie Zhang.

Supercrawl provides opportunities to local, regional and national artists and performers at both early and established stages of their practices. An annual call for submissions is issued to invite proposals from artists working in a variety of media.

Art-loving festival-goers will also find numerous gallery spaces and artists’ studios in and around Supercrawl’s neighbourhood, including Art Gallery of HamiltonThe AssemblyCentre[3]Coloma StudioGallery 4 Annex, Melanie Gillis Studio, ​Hamilton Artists Inc., HCA GalleryMills HardwareRE-Create Outreach Art Studio, Studio on James, The Studios at Hotel HamiltonJulia Veenstra StudiosWorkers Arts and Heritage Centre and You Me Gallery.

Video shot on location at Supercrawl 2019 by Thrillhouse Studios
TOP TO BOTTOM: Dean Drever, Bear Hunt, at Supercrawl 2014; Max Streicher, Giants Ascending, at Supercrawl 2011

Supercrawl Unveils New Public Artwork for 2020-2021

Supercrawl celebrates the arrival of a bold new large-scale work of visual art in downtown Hamilton. On Friday, October 23, installation teams mounted Shellie Zhang’s striking work To What Do We Owe This Honour? on the south facade of 118 James Street North.

The artwork is curated by McMaster Museum of Art and sponsored by both the McMaster Museum of Art and the Downtown Hamilton BIA.

Presented by TD Bank Group (TD) as part of the TD Ready Commitment to amplify diverse voices, Supercrawl is Hamilton’s premier multi-arts festival, fusing new and independent music with art installations, fashion, performance, literature, theatre, and artisanal craft. Supercrawl’s diverse multi-disciplinary program of sound, performance, visual and media arts is staged along a pedestrian-only creative corridor in the heart of downtown.

Zhang’s artwork is the sixth long-term installation that the festival has showcased at this site, where it will live as a prominent visual presence over James Street North for an entire year. It succeeds Supercrawl’s 2019 installation, Hiba Abdallah’s text-based work In Retrospect, whose declarative message (EVERYTHING IS MUCH MORE CONNECTED THAN WE THINK) anticipated our current moment, a time when links between global and local concerns are undeniable.

Shellie Zhang’s To What Do We Owe This Honour? enlarges a collection of miniature totemic objects against a backdrop of a sky to create a connection between the intimate setting of one’s home with the shared realm of public space. The project prompts reflection for the objects we surround ourselves with and the monuments we adorn our cities with, questioning, what symbols reflect our current collective values, whose legacies are granted permanence, and which histories are given a pedestal.

Zhang (born 1991 in Beijing, China) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto, Ontario. By uniting both past and present iconography with the techniques of mass communication, language and sign, Zhang’s work deconstructs notions of tradition, gender, the diaspora, and popular culture while calling attention to these subjects in the context and construction of a multicultural society. She is interested in exploring how integration, diversity and assimilation is implemented and negotiated, how this relates to lived experiences, how culture is learned, relearned and sustained, and how things are remembered and preserved.

Zhang has exhibited at venues including WORKJAM (Beijing, CN), Asian Art Initiative (Philadelphia, PA) and Gallery 44 (Toronto, ON). She is a recipient of grants such as the Toronto Arts Council’s Visual Projects grant, the Ontario Arts Council’s Visual Artists Creation Grant and the Canada Council’s Project Grant to Visual Artists. In 2017, she was Artist-in-Residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her work has been published in Canadian Art, the Toronto Star, Blackflash Magazine, CBC Arts, and C Magazine, and she is a member of EMILIA-AMALIA, a feminist reading and writing group. The artist’s recent and upcoming projects include exhibitions at Artspace (Peterborough, ON), Patel Gallery (Toronto, ON), AKA Artist-Run (Saskatoon, SK) and the Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, AK).

A not-for-profit arts organization situated within the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Haudenosaunee nations, Supercrawl is committed to honouring, showcasing and celebrating all varieties of creative work. Positioning local and emerging artists alongside significant provincial, national and international peers, the festival fosters and promotes arts and culture as well as the myriad benefits they provide.

Since 2010, Supercrawl’s Visual Arts programming has showcased upwards of 100 artists and featured visual art installations in a variety of media. Supercrawl provides opportunities to local, regional and national artists and performers at both early and established stages of their practices. An annual call for submissions is issued to invite proposals from artists working in a variety of media, and art-lovers will also find around two dozen gallery spaces and artists’ studios in and around Supercrawl’s neighbourhood.

Supercrawl was shortlisted for a 2019 Ontario Tourism Award of Excellence for Tourism Event of the Year and 2017 Canadian Tourism Award for Event of the Year. The festival received the 2015 Ontario Tourism Award of Excellence for Tourism Event of the Year, and has been recognized as one of Festival and Events Ontario’s Top 100 Festivals/Events for six consecutive years (2015-2020). Supercrawl is a member organization of the Major International Festivals and Events Network of Ontario, the Canadian Music Live Association, and Festivals and Events Ontario.

In June, Supercrawl festival organizers announced that they would be re-scoping event programming in response to pandemic-related public health considerations. The massive free event, which drew more than 250,000 fans in 2019, has since undertaken a range of special events, including the ticketed Skytop Concert Series staged atop the York Boulevard Parkade in September and announced a free live performance series at Bridgeworks (200 Caroline St. N., Hamilton) that will showcase various artistic disciplines through the end of 2020.

Supercrawl Insiders