Three artists have been selected as artists-in-residence for the City of Peterborough’s new Change Makers Artist Residency Program, administered by the city’s public art program and developed in partnership with the city’s asset management and capital planning division.
During their three-month residency, Ann Jaeger, Dimitri Papatheodorou, and Josh Morley will each receive an artist fee to develop project proposals that integrate art into municipal infrastructure projects in support of climate change awareness and adaptation and sustainability-related initiatives.
The city issued a call for applications for the residency program in August, with the program’s intent to use art in innovative ways within the city’s capital projects to raise awareness and engage the community.
“An artist residency program is envisioned to amplify communication around climate-related vulnerabilities, especially those due to flooding, but also to begin earnest conversations about climate change risks in general,” says James Byrne, the city’s climate change coordinator, in a media release. “Artists help us to think, to remember, and to see things in different ways. What changes can we make by facing challenges together?”
Ann Jaeger is a multi-disciplinary artist in Peterborough whose body of work intersects literary, theatre, and visual arts. She has presented solo exhibitions of painting and sculpture, is a pubiished poet, and writes articles on regional arts and culture for her blog Trout in Plaid and for local media.
Dimitri Papatheodorou is an artist pursuing hybrid forms of expression through painting, sculpture, music, and architecture. Born in Toronto, he is adjunct faculty at Toronto Metropolitan University and operates from a rural studio called The Periphery outside Warkworth in Northumberland County.
Josh Morley is an Anishinaabe artist belonging to Sturgeon Clan of Wabauskang First Nation who grew up in the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie. Currently working in screen printing and mural work in Peterborough, Morley’s work explores regional ecological issues, his personal relationship with nature, and his ancestral connection to the land.
