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Che Kothari Artist and Instigator Award

* NEW AWARD, launched in 2024! *

Celebrating young BIPOC artists who are making positive change through cultural leadership

Deadline: Nominations for Che Kothari Artist & Instigator Award will open in September 2025. 

Access the Full Eligibility Guidelines HERE


About: The Toronto Arts Foundation Che Kothari Artist & Instigator Award is a $10,000 cash prize, with finalists receiving $1,000 each. The award supports and encourages a young BIPOC artist who is recognized for their artistic contributions and is making positive change through cultural leadership. Whether through starting a movement, creating an arts hub, collective, or organization, or through mentorship, events, or other creative activities, the recipient of the award must make an impact on people and/or the community through the arts beyond their artistic practice. Artists aged 18-35 working in any artistic discipline are eligible to receive the award. Established in 2024, the Che Kothari Artist & Instigator Award is presented every year at the Mayor’s Arts Lunch. The recipient and finalist prizes are generously supported by Che Kothari.  

About Che Kothari
The Che Kothari Artist & Instigator Award was founded in 2024 by Photographer, Director, Producer, Organizer, Manager, Artist & Instigator Che Kothari. Che received a Toronto Arts Foundation Award in 2013 in recognition of his cultural leadership through his work with Manifesto Community Projects, which he co-founded in 2007. Understanding the value of art, community, and youth-led movements, Che created this award to recognize young artistic instigators and inspire other established artists to think of how they can make change and give back.  Che is proud to be a role model and provide a space for people of colour to see themselves as cultural philanthropists.
 

Eligibility Criteria

Individuals:  

  • must have demonstrated an ongoing association with Toronto;  
  • must have contributed significantly to the arts and culture of Toronto; the individual must demonstrate early-stage cultural leadership in community beyond their individual artistic practise:  
    • Cultural leadership can take all forms: city-builders, community-nurturers, connectors, or thought-leaders. The nomination must demonstrate the nominees’ leadership in an area similar to or as detailed above. 
  • must be living at time of selection;  
  • must be between the ages of 18 – 35 years of age  
  • must identify as Black, Indigenous and/or Person of Colour (BIPOC)  
  • must be an artist in the early stages of their professional career who has produced a small body of work and achieved some local recognition and/or has limited public exhibition experience;  
  • should have between 2 and 7 years of independent arts practice in their nominated discipline;  
  • undergraduate and college students are eligible to apply.  
  • are not eligible to nominate or receive Toronto Arts Foundation awards while serving as an executive board member or staff of Toronto Arts Foundation or Toronto Arts Council  
  • May self-nominate 

With the exception of the Newcomer Artist Award, no person or organization may be selected for more than one Toronto Arts Foundation Award within any given year, and no person or organization may receive the same Toronto Arts Foundation Award twice. This does not preclude a recipient from being considered for a different Toronto Arts Foundation award in the future. 

 
How to Nominate  

To nominate an individual for the Che Kothari Artist & Instigator Award you must: 

  • visit the Toronto Arts Foundation Nomination Portal  
  • register an account on Toronto Arts Foundation’s Nomination Portal or sign into your existing account  
  • submit the nomination online, complete with supporting material.  

Notes:  

Along with the name of the individual you are nominating, the Nomination Portal will ask for a biography, a nomination rationale, and accompanying support material in the form of visual, audio or text-based attachments.  

Nominators can save their application at any time before submission by clicking ‘Save Draft.’  Nominators can log-in and out of Toronto Arts Foundation’s Nomination Portal as many times as needed before clicking ‘Submit.’   

*Please ensure you are on/ register through Toronto Arts Foundation’s Nomination Portal and not Toronto Arts Council’s ‘TAC Grants Online.’  


Curious about the info/questions you'll be asked when filling out the nomination? Check out this handy guide. 

Selection Procedure: An award panel of up to ten assessors selected by the Award Manager will review nominations and recommend a shortlist and a recipient for final approval by Toronto Arts Foundation’s Board of Directors. Participants in each panel include practitioners of the arts, organizers, programmers, producers, curators, critics, commentators and lay specialists. Panelists must have recognized expertise, credibility, and experience along with a sense of history and perspective.  

The final list of assessors is made public in the form of an announcement distributed to media and Foundation stakeholders and posted on the Foundation’s website.

In addition to specific requirements for each award, deliberations will be guided by the following assessment criteria:  

  • artistic strength and achievement   
  • strength of the candidate’s artistic goals and objectives   
  • contribution to the development of arts and culture in Toronto   
  • the nominee’s overall public impact including community engagement and animation  
     

For question about the awards and eligibility please contact: 
Liz Tsui, Coordinator, Program Outreach 
liz@torontoarts.org 
416-392-6802 x225