🎉 THE GOBLINS HAVE BEEN CHOSEN 🎉
Today we held our live lottery draw and we are so thrilled to welcome our six Goblin Market participants:
Evan Cameron
Ufuk Gueray
Annie Gavin
Charity Cruz
Marcus Denomme
Julie Dyer
We’ll be in touch soon with next steps!
A huge thank you to everyone who joined the Halifax artist roster and entered the draw. Your generosity and openness is exactly the kind of energy this project is built on.
Didn’t get selected? You can still add yourself to the public Halifax artist roster — link in bio — and stay tuned to CFAT’s channels for upcoming Goblin Market activities.
May luck be on your side. 🌿
Goblin Market is presented by CFAT and UKAI Projects (@ukaiprojects ) with the support of Arts Nova Scotia.
CALL FOR ARTISTS! CLOSES TONIGHT AT 11:59 PM ATLANTIC!
CFAT is partnering with UKAI Projects for Goblin Market -- and the roster closes tonight!
This isn't a typical open call. No competitive application. Instead, we're building a public list of artists, creatives, and cultural workers open to collaboration, resource-sharing, and new ways of working. Six participants will be selected by live lottery tomorrow, April 24 at noon.
Selected participants receive:
*A 6-week artist economy prototyping lab
*Access to CFAT's facility, equipment, and membership through late June
*A 2-day micro-festival and week-long public exhibition
*$1,200 (honorarium + materials)
Be honest, be open, be a generous goblin.
This probably isn't for you if you're looking for cheap labour, you're not interested in sharing resources with peers, or you've hoarded equipment from an art centre and hoped nobody noticed.
You can join the roster and opt out of the lottery -- your profile will still be visible to potential collaborators.
Link in bio. Closes 11:59 PM Atlantic tonight.
Goblin Market is presented by CFAT and UKAI Projects with the support of Arts Nova Scotia.
Open call (link in bio)
Actually, no. No open call
Normally, we would launch an open call, but with being understaffed and facing serious budget cuts, it will be a bit of a gamble this time. The idea is simple: join the list of artists willing to collaborate, share resources, and work together. This list will be visible to the public, so once it’s published, artists, creatives, and cultural workers in Halifax can see your entries and understand what you’re looking for in a collaboration. Be honest, be open to new ways of working, and be a generous goblin.
Goblin Market consists of a 6-week artist-economy prototyping lab, access to CFAT’s facility and membership from late April/early May to June, a 2-day micro-festival, and a week-long exhibition open to the public in late June. We will select six artists from the list to participate in this program by lottery. We want to be surprised, and we understand there are always risks involved.
❌❌❌ Don’t join the list if:
You’re looking for free or inexpensive labour from the list to push non-collaborative work that doesn’t benefit the arts community.
You’re not particularly interested in prototyping new economic systems that support the arts
You’re uncomfortable with collaborators proposing ideas that differ from your own.
You’ve previously poured paint down the drain at a shared studio and hoped nobody would notice
You’ve hoarded equipment borrowed from an art centre for selfish reasons
You are not keen on offering resources to your peers
If you are not on the mailing list yet, get in!
We are working on a new post since you asked for a “how-to” rundown of GM.
In all honesty, just a few little dudes (like the one in the last slide), each with a suitcase and a dream.
@spiraleyedd@abbeyspiral is a founding goblin who has since spun their own web of artists navigating the creative landscape. Dance, movement, sound, and of course how to build a nourishing creative ecosystem
We are scheming a good April fool’s reunion at @canela.toronto . We are also going to be surprised if other goblins decide to join in on the hangout in Toronto 🐌⚡️🎀
First 2 photos @annaarrobas
Last 2 photos @nichotrees
It’s the friends we made along the way 🦞
Art is a place where we can experience moments that are larger than life: the long lost friendship that you have yet to grieve, the songs stuck in your throat you are afraid of singing, the unexpected encounters that changed the course of your journey, the lingering scents of a hometown you can’t return to.
Art has no value to justify for itself but without it we lose the tools to navigate what comes next.
The reason why we always wrap up the economic lab program of Goblin Market with, well, a market, is that we need to experience something different from the scarcity models. We must dream it and make it real with our hands rather than being told what it is by someone else.
This market, you pay with things more valuable than money (still appreciated, you know, times are tough). You pay in attention, curiosity, time, presence, and perhaps the hope that we can imagine how to live beautifully.
@foallangardens March 2025
Photos @nichotrees
Founding goblins @studioamelia@ixeen_@abbeyspiral@adrianlayner@triciaenns@em1webmaster
Couldn’t have pulled this one off without @xychaa@luisalyji@jerrold.mcgrath@cassraa@yi_dian_er@marsipooh@chae._jess@wendyewoon@ben_fin@welikekrump@screwfacetoronto.krump@themeaningfulmovement@melinapatry@kingantone@lux.sparkledust@carmenleardi@lewismiah
You might be asking “what is Goblin Market?”
Well, Goblin Market is what you do when everything in the “professional arts” sector sucks and you’re in the shower thinking “how the heck did I get here with no opportunity no clout no funding no job no friends no audience” (objectively not true but the drama of shower thoughts tend to make everything so bleak, you know?)
All jokes aside, here’s an answer to the question:
gig to gig. application to application. each artist optimizing for their own survival because the infrastructure that was supposed to hold everyone either got a serious budget cut or is just extraction rebranded as an “opportunity.”
the result is not a thriving creative ecosystem.
it’s a very aesthetically coherent collection of people burning out.
alone.
in public.
we think there might be another way.
we’re not sure yet.
we’ve got the goblin caravan (going to Halifax).
we packed snacks and we’re in for a ride.
Keep your eyes open for pop ups wherever the goblins are located and the upcoming Goblin Goods store 🦞
We have a newsletter maintained by founding goblin, social media team, chief of executive dysfunction, hamster on the wheel and office admin @luisalyji
What you get is a mix of whimsical burnout and serious takes on surviving the arts.
