Collections Assessment Assistant Joy and Technical Intern Jose, Summer 2013

Vtape began assessing our distribution collection in 2007, one artist at a time. This prompted the development of a summer position dedicated to this important and exciting collections management project. Each year, with the support of the Young Canada Works Program through the Canadian Museums Association, our Collections Assessment Assistants are trained to evaluate and care for our oldest and most fragile works, as well as helping Vtape execute our collections management strategies.

The Collections Assessment Assistant Program runs from early June through the end of August annually. Jobs are posted through Young Canada Works in early May. For more information please contact admin@vtape.org.

If you are interested in applying you must first register with the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Young Canada Works program to determine your eligibility.

Winner of an education award from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (now Galleries Ontario), Vtape’s Curatorial Incubator program provides workshops, mentorship, and exhibition opportunities to emerging curators. A public call for proposals (this links to an example from 2022) is circulated in spring or early summer, and participants are selected based on their proposals. Established in 2002, the Curatorial Incubator has worked with more than 50 emerging curators to date; many of them have gone on to establish themselves in prominent curatorial, administrative, or artistic careers.

See the Publications section of the site for catalogues from previous Curatorial Incubator programs.

Research Intern Radojka, Summer 2013

Vtape offers ongoing Research and Graduate Research Placement opportunities for students and recent graduates from universities, colleges and art schools across the region.

Research and Graduate Research participants focus their attention on locating and cataloguing critical literature from print and on-line sources into a customized database, adding bibliographical information and short descriptive synopses to Vtape’s Critical Writing Index. Articles listed in this index come from Canadian and international periodicals, newspapers, books and exhibition support materials documenting media arts activity from the 1950s to the present. Research Placements for undergraduate students involve searching for, locating and cataloguing published materials from a range of sources; Graduate Research Placements, for students working at the Master’s or PhD level, work in parallel with the student’s established research direction to add more specialized material to the database, in consultation with Vtape staff.

Placements include training workshops in specific areas of expertise and are offered for classroom credit. If you are interested in a Research or Graduate Research Placement, please send a CV and expression of interest by the end of the first week of September (for fall placements); by the end of the first week of January (for winter placements); or by the end of the last week of April (for spring/summer placements). Master’s or PhD-level applicants for Graduation Research Placements should include a brief description of their current research direction in their application. For more information or to apply, please contact admin@vtape.org.

Technical training at Vtape is now primarily conducted through our annual Young Canada Works-funded Collections Assessment Assistant summer jobs; see above. Institutions and organizations that require technical training for staff or are interested in arranging formal educational placements can contact us about training possibilities: admin@vtape.org. Vtape may also be able to accommodate training for special projects, educational and government initiatives, or other funded programs.