Digital Originals

What activities can you apply for?

You can apply for costs to develop, create, and share a new or adapted work for digital dissemination to the Canadian public during the COVID-19 pandemic. These micro innovation grants allow you to work quickly to either adapt your existing work or create a new work for sharing online.

As projects must respect public health guidelines, we strongly encourage inventive “do-it-yourself” solutions. Eligible projects must:

• respect all government public health restrictions put in place to reduce the transmission of COVID-19, including recommendations for social distancing and limits on public gatherings
• ensure that you and other participating artists are properly remunerated based on relevant industry standards (which may vary by field of practice)
• ensure that you have appropriate written permission for any third-party content that was not created by you.

While work can be disseminated on any digital platform, applicants will have the option of indicating that they would like to take advantage of the Council’s partnership with CBC/Radio-Canada to amplify the dissemination of their project.

You can’t apply for activities that occur before your application submission date or those on the general list of ineligible activities.

Who can apply?

Types of potential applicants to this initiative include:

• artists, curators, and writers

• new and early career artists
  

• First Nations, Inuit and Métis aspiring artists (you are not required to work with a mentor for this initiative)
• artistic groups and collectives
• artistic organizations

Your eligibility to apply is determined by the validated profile created in the Canada Council portal.

Artistic organizations presently receiving core grants are not eligible to apply to this initiative.

CBC/Radio-Canada and Canada Council employees are not eligible.

Dissemination opportunity

This summer, CBC/Radio-Canada will curate and feature a special selection of funded projects on one of its digital platforms and provide an online home to all selected projects on a dedicated website, where appropriate and technologically feasible. Those who are interested in being considered for this opportunity will need to indicate that they grant the Canada Council permission to share their application, if successful, with CBC/Radio-Canada and to grant a license to CBC/Radio-Canada to house the project on a dedicated website. Applicants will retain full control over their intellectual property.

Any funded project with a public URL can be featured on CBC/Radio-Canada’s Digital Originals site, whether it is hosted on a website or a social network. CBC/Radio-Canada will also curate and host a selection of projects directly on its website. These must be delivered as any combination of text, images, video and audio (detailed technical and delivery specifications to be shared in the notification of results). Interactive, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and live projects will not be eligible for inclusion for hosting by CBC/Radio-Canada but may be featured on the CBC/Radio-Canada’s Digital Originals site. All hosted projects regardless of medium must at a minimum include a short description/artist statement, an image and an artist bio.