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The Artist in Residence Studio program or AIRS is an artist-led charity for providing equitable access to high quality and socially relevant visual arts education for children in public elementary schools through longterm artist residencies. AIRS works in collaboration with the Vancouver School Board to create a studio space within a school and supports local, professional artists to design and facilitate dynamic, process based visual and interdisciplinary arts engagements for children across the whole school. AIRS awakens the creative and compassionate capacities of children empowering them to become transformers of their world.
"I feel like whenever I do art, I can always have a smile on my face. I feel like I crawl out my shell." -
- Grade 5 Student
On May 20, 2025, AiRS hosted our annual year end exhibition at the VSB education centre. This exhibition brought together a selection of individual and collaborative student works - including prints, paintings, puppets, textiles, multi and digital media - working alongside artists through studio residencies in 18 elementary schools over the 2024/25 school year.
The title I AM Resilience and Reciprocity, encapsulates resonant themes across diverse project concepts, studio settings and art processes and calls attention to the relational nature of growing and learning as human beings, as a continual dialogue and choreographed movement between inner reflection and communal interaction; inside and outside, self and world.
The third volume of ART WAVES is out. ART WAVES provides updates on what’s happening behind the scenes at AIRS and a glimpse of some of the incredible art projects unfolding in the studios for students with artists.
Yunuen Perez Vertti is a Digital Media Artist and Filmmaker originally from Mexico City, and is a beloved member of AIRS. Working in front of and behind the scenes at AIRS for 7 years as an artist, mentor and community builder, Yunuen’s passion for arts education creates spaces of artistic discovery and transformation for both artists and students.
AIRS program hosted a 3 day pop up exhibition at ARTspeak Gallery, a public gallery in downtown Vancouver from April 23-26, 2025 featuring masks, poetry, abstract works, collage animations and soundscapes created by intermediate students at Pierre Elliot Trudeau, John Henderson and Chief Maquinna Elementary. Led by artists Kelsie Grazier, Monica Cheema and fanny Kearse, students worked with diverse media (sound, light, colour, shadow, gesture, words, archival photography, and found ephemera) to explore the space where image and language intersect This is the spaces between silence and sound, seeing and speaking, where intimations and expressions of our authentic self and our being in the world can emerge. The opening was an inspiring celebration for students and their parents, featuring student poetry performances and a panel of student artists. This powerful exhibition, opened up space for intergenerational exchange where young people model the practice of being true to ourselves, and vulnerable to the possibilities of our creative transformation through art.
This residency and exhibition is funded through a City of Vancouver CASC grant and made possible through the generosity of ARTspeak Gallery.
Applications are now closed. If you would like to receive information about AIRS, please sign up for our newsletter below.
If you have any specific questions about the program connect with Yunuen Perez Vertti at yunuen@airprogram.org
With the 2025/2026 school year on the horizon, we are urgently expanding our funding base. To ensure the sustainability of our program, we've launched a Giving Tuesday fundraising campaign with a goal of $25,000 by December 3rd. These funds are crucial for providing high-quality arts education to underserved elementary public schools in the long run. Please consider a donation to our program. Every contribution makes a difference; all donations above $25 will receive a tax receipt.
Donations to AIRS Program Society can be made directly through link below.
Every year, AIRS releases an end-of-the-year report based on the review of visual documentation, written reflections, and recollections of participating students, teachers, and artists collected throughout the year. This year was significant for AIRS as a newly formed registered charity. The report reflects on this milestone and the possibilities for new partnerships, growth, and the expansion of the program's long-term impact.
The Artist In Residence Studio program is honoured to be working together on the unceded, unsurrendered and traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm|Musqueam, Sḵwxwú7mesh|Squamish & səlilwətaɬ |Tsleil-Waututh people, where we learn, live and work. We humbly acknowledge that we are unlearning and relearning and with this acknowledgement comes the commitment to engage in ongoing acts of reconciliation.