Upcoming Residencies
2026 Okanagan Curator Award
Victoria Verge
Photo: Zev Tiefenbach
Victoria Verge is a Canadian curator and artist based in Kelowna, B.C., where she serves as Curator at the Vernon Public Art Gallery. Her curatorial practice focuses on contemporary art in relation to place, shaped by feminist and decolonial approaches, with a commitment to accessibility and artist-centred presentation.
She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia Okanagan and a BFA from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Verge has exhibited nationally and was the recipient of the Audain Travel Award in 2023. In 2025, she was selected for the Canadian Forces Artists Program, advancing her research in the intersections of domestic life, mobility, and militarized experience.
Alongside her curatorial work, Verge maintains a studio practice shaped by her upbringing in a military family and her roots in Newfoundland. Working through sculptural and installation-based practices, her work draws on domestic and folk traditions to examine how militarized and patriarchal structures shape experiences of home, memory, and childhood from within.
Installation View: Portals to Elsewhere, Amy J. Dyck, 2026. Photo: Courtesy of VPAG
Visit the Similkameen Artist Residency website for more details.
2026 Unfolding Desires Curatorial Residency
Francesca Lazzarini
Photo: Simão Bessa
Francesca Lazzarini is a curator working in the field of visual arts. She is a PhD candidate in Advanced Practices at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research explores the post-photographic as a dynamic space for rethinking forms of togetherness with and through images.
After working at Fondazione Fotografia Modena (2007–2013), she developed and curated independent research-based, collaborative, and experimental projects presented at, among others, Škuc Gallery (Ljubljana), Camera Austria (Graz), SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen), FMAV (Modena), Kunsthaus Graz, IC-CD (Rome), Kortil Gallery (Rijeka), Fondazione Francesco Fabbri (Treviso), Trieste Contemporanea, and MLZ Art Dep (Trieste).
She is co-initiator of POIUYT (2017–present), a member of the Absent Audience collective (2021–present), and director of the AiR Trieste residency programme (2016–present).
Curatorial Talk
Sunday, September 20, 2026
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Program: Unfolding Desire Assembly
Saturday, September 26, 2026
10:00 AM - 7:00 PM
Unfolding Desire, The Law of the Good Neighbour: workshop by Ofri Cnaani, Trieste, 2025