Call for Artistic Creations:
2026 Concordia Student Volt-Age Exhibition
Show your creativity. Shape the energy transition.
Theme: Advancing Electrification for Shared Prosperity
Concordia students are now invited to take part in the inaugural Volt-Age Exhibition, a showcase of student creativity inspired by the clean energy transition.
Submit an existing piece or propose a new creation for display and performance at the 2026 Volt-Age Summit in downtown Montreal in May 2026.
How can art illuminate the path to a more sustainable and equitable future? The first Volt-Age Exhibition explores the theme “Advancing electrification for shared prosperity." The Volt-Age research program responds to the impacts of climate change and the need for a just transition to clean energy in Canada. Focused on electrification as a pathway to decarbonization, the program invites artistic creations that connect with the idea of electrification. Find out more about our ongoing research projects.
We welcome artistic creations in all mediums (see Eligibility for details).
Here are a few ideas to inspire your work on the theme:
- A digital collage or mixed-media piece showing how electrification connects people, cities and electrification
- An interactive sculpture exploring how electrification empowers individuals and communities
- A photography series documenting the shift to electrification and renewable energy
- An augmented reality or immersive experience imagining how a community or city could transform through sustainable electric power
- A devised theatre piece reflecting on the need for a just transition to electrification, highlighting diverse perspectives and access to renewable energy
Eligibility
The call for artistic creations is open to all current Concordia University students, including undergraduates, masters, and PhD students. Students may submit an existing work or propose a new project to be completed before the exhibition date.
Proposals are welcome from both individual artists and collectives.
Note: The honorarium is awarded per project, not per person. Some financial support may also be available for installation and/or production costs.
Volt-Age invites artworks in any medium that reflect this year’s theme, connect with electrification and align with the program’s mission.
Artistic creations can be:
- Visual art (painting, sculpture, ceramics, photography, etc.)
- Textile arts and fashion
- Written works
- Film and video art
- Digital art
- Soundscapes and sound art
- Theatrical performances or performance art
- Puppetry
- Dance
- Spoken word
- Mixed media
- Other
Submission and evaluation
Submission guidelines
The deadline for proposal submissions has now passed.
- Each student or collective may submit only one application.
- Applicants are encouraged to consider a variety of physical spaces and indicate which would best suit their needs.
- Applications can be completed in either French or English.
Evaluation procedure
Applications will be reviewed by a curation team made up of Volt-Age administrators and external arts professionals. Submissions will be evaluated for artistic merit, as well as their connection to the theme and the Volt-Age mission.
Awards
- The curatorial decisions will be communicated by December 15, 2025.
- We will award an honorarium of $500 to each artistic creation, with amounts potentially varying for new and existing works.
- The 2026 exhibition will include a maximum of 15 selected creations.
Awardees
We thank all applicants to the exhibition and are pleased to announce the awardees of the 2026 Concordia Student Volt-Age Exhibition. They are:
Corps Commun is an interdisciplinary collective creating performances that combine sound, bodies and space. Their work is hands-on and experimental, shaped by their backgrounds in sound art, performance, installation, music and electroacoustics. Trio is their first performance together and serves as a prototype. The piece will evolve over time as the collective learns from the work, the space and the audience.
- Expertise:Sound, performance and installation art.
- Process: Their work is grounded in material exploration. They experiment, adjust, and focus on what feels alive. Much of the practice involves slowing down and creating moments of shared attention between performers and audience. Technology is integrated to support the material and enhance the immersive experience.
- Goal: To create intimate moments where the audience can engage freely.
Kian Moradi & Homeyra Esmaeilzadeh is an Iranian performance collective working at the intersection of contemporary dance, theatre and traditional movement practices. Their collaboration began four years ago with a shared interest in bringing the embodied knowledge of Iranian folk and classical forms into dialogue with contemporary performance. Their work aims to create pieces that resonate across cultural backgrounds by bridging ancestral practices with current artistic research.
The collective creates interdisciplinary performances that combine choreography, script, music and live improvisation. Their major work to date, A Horse Named Shabrang, was presented over three nights at the University of Alberta. The piece was a contemporary dance-theatre work shaped by ritual, rhythm and collective devising. They continue to develop new projects that explore how tradition can move through contemporary bodies and how performance can carry memory, story and experimentation into the present.
Lina Forero is a master's candidate in the Digital Innovation in Journalism program. For the past five years, she has worked as a senior communications manager for Indigenous Clean Energy. Originally from Colombia, Lina has been living in Montreal with her family since 2016.
This photo series documents the clean energy journey of Inukjuak, a remote Inuit community in northern Quebec that is redefining what a sustainable future can look like when it is led from within. In the fall of 2024, I visited Inukjuak and spent time with the climate leaders and community members whose vision and determination brought the Innavik Hydro Project to life. Their leadership is at the heart of this transition, one that is not only technical, but deeply cultural. I was drawn to this project because it embodies what climate action can and should be: community-led, grounded in lived experience, and aligned with cultural values. Through these images, I aim to honour the people behind the work, the relationships that sustain it, and the possibilities it opens for future generations in the Arctic and beyond.
Trisha Chakrabarty has been creating art for as long as she can remember. In high school, she studied in an enriched science program, where she learned to integrate art and science. Since then, she has focused on using digital technologies and electronic circuits in her work, leading her to pursue a degree in Computer Science & Computation Arts at Concordia University.
Her practice is based on the fusion of art and technology, guided by the belief that the most meaningful engagement occurs when the audience becomes an active participant. Immersion is multisensory, involving sound, touch and presence. Her latest installation, Vesuvius, is a 3D model that blends circuitry and audio, inviting viewers to engage with and experience the work through interaction.
Wan Xin (Wendy) is a Chinese artist and designer currently enrolled in the Design program at Concordia University. Having moved from China to Canada at a young age, her perspective is shaped by a blend of Eastern and Western cultures. Her work often emphasizes conceptual practices, exploring ideas through physical making, with the process and underlying concepts taking precedence over the final object.
She enjoys creating with her hands, shifting between conceptual art and physical making. Wan Xin is drawn to materials, process, and the space between the tangible and intangible. Her projects typically start with a concept but often include a playful or unexpected twist. The Wheel Lamp is a conceptual piece that reflects her exploration of upcycling, repurposing, and the idea of readymades.
Equity, diversity and inclusion
The Volt-Age Research Program is committed to advancing innovative and inclusive research by embedding Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) principles into every step of academic research, from design to dissemination. This commitment extends to all Volt-Age–funded events and activities.
We encourage individuals with diverse and multiple identities — including but not limited to, Indigenous peoples, people of colour, disabled people, members of the LGBTQIA2+ community, women and immigrants — to submit artistic creations. Volt-Age recognizes that BICOP artists have traditionally been disproportionately excluded from opportunities to share their work, and we aim to help elevate those voices. We are dedicated to building a community that celebrates diversity as a source of strength.