Call for performances: Relational Tensions

Call for submissions

Deadline: October 20, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. (EST)
Info session: October 3, 2025, 6-7:30 pm (online, registration required)

Register to the info session
Submit an application

La Centrale invites artists and collectives to submit proposals for performances for its 2025–2026 annual programming, under the theme Relational Tensions.

In a world increasingly marked by individualism and isolation, we want to question our ways of being together, of forming communities, of coexisting. This call proposes to explore our contemporary ways of interacting and relating, as well as the complexities that emerge from them: the often invisible work of creating bonds, the discomfort of confronting our blind spots, and the radical potential of gathering together.

Considering relationships and interactions as both a field of tension—where friction, disagreements, and power dynamics play out—and a fertile space for exchange, solidarity, and care, we ask ourselves:

What does “being together” mean today?
With whom do we choose to create bonds?
What do our ways of relating reveal about us?
What space does community hold in our lives?
How can we nurture reciprocity, vulnerability, and empathy?
How do we build a “we” in a fragmented world?
What is relational activism?
What do our ways of listening and caring teach us?
How can we invent sensitive and radical forms of gathering?

Here, performance will be considered as a tool for encounter. An embodied space where bodies, ideas, experiences, struggles, and different forms of presence engage in dialogue. We invite only proposals that incorporate a relational, participatory, or collective dimension into their approach. This constraint is intended as an invitation to imagine performative forms that generate new ways of relating and being together.

Our mandate

La Centrale galerie Powerhouse is an artist-run centre dedicated to the dissemination and development of multidisciplinary feminist practices. We are committed to supporting practices and artists who are not very visible in the dominant cultural institutions, and this at various stages of their careers. Our mandate focuses on feminisms that enter into dialogue with intersectionality and social justice. Our programming is built on the basis of non-hierarchy and consensus, by selection committees made up of active members of the centre. 

We pay exhibition fees and honorarium according to the rates recommended by the Canadian Artists’ Representation / Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC). 

Selection criteria

• Relevance of the proposal to the theme of the call for proposals
• Clarity of the artistic approach and intentions
• Technical and logistical feasibility of the project in the context of La Centrale
• Originality and ability of the project to activate relational, participatory, or collective dynamics 
• Particular attention will be paid to practices rooted in intersectional feminist, decolonial, queer, anti-racist, and/or community perspectives

How to apply

To submit a project, please include the following information in a PDF of up to 5 MB, and include it in the following form: Call for performances - Relational Tensions. Applications can be submitted in French or English.

Project description

• An artist’s statement (max. 250 words)
• A curriculum vitae (including email address and phone number)
• A project description (max. 500 words)
• A short text explaining how your project fits with La Centrale's mandate (max. 200 words) 
• A list of technical requirements
• A layout plan for the project (optional, see below for gallery plan).

Visual folder

• Visual documentation (10-15 images max, in digital format)
• For video works, please include a clickable link (VIMEO or Youtube) with instructions to watch the video/timestamp
• A descriptive list of the documentation (title, medium, size and year)

Please note

• You will find a plan of the gallery here.  
• The documents must be gathered in a single PDF. 
• The PDF document must be identified according to the following form: 2026.LastName.LCPROG (ex: 2026.Kitten.LCPROG).
• The total file should not exceed 5 MB.
• Late and/or incomplete submissions will not be accepted.

View our other ongoing CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS