MOCA Youth Council: Creative Youth
Join us for Creative Youth’s Fall Session! Applications are now open and will close on Thursday, September 25, 2025.
Are you passionate about photography, writing, and contemporary art? This season offers a space for young creatives to engage with the work of celebrated Canadian artist, Jeff Wall. Explore Wall’s powerful images and ideas through hands-on photography workshops, writing projects, and collaborative exhibitions. You’ll get the chance to create and share your own work, connect with other young artists, and experience the museum behind the scenes. Join us and be part of the conversation!
To apply, please fill out the form below. All applicants will be contacted and considered.
Applications are now open for Creative Youth’s Fall 2026 season.
This season runs from October 2026 to May 2027.
What is Creative Youth?
Creative Youth is a space for young creatives to explore and interact with the museum behind the scenes.
Through a series of workshops and creative sessions, this mentorship programme guides youth (ages 15–18) in transforming their emerging community arts passion into practice. Participants will learn about programme production, community arts building facilitation, and curation, while developing professional and artistic skills. There will also be opportunities to meet with artists and arts practitioners at the museum, learn from MOCA staff, visit Toronto arts institutions, and participate in Public Programmes and Learning events.
Towards the end of the series, members will co-produce a programme of their own design, which can range from workshops to exhibitions to performances.
In developing their programme, members of Creative Youth will have the opportunity to respond to MOCA’s exhibitions and to broader social issues. Members are also given the opportunity to meet exhibiting artists and MOCA partners in order to explore the inner workings of arts institutions, with the aim of empowering young artists to step into the role of arts leaders within their own communities.
Learn more about opportunities and workshops for youth by following us on Instagram or signing up for the MOCA newsletter.
Session Timeline
The Fall 2026 session runs from October 2026–May 2027.
The programme will be offered during the school year and will break for school holidays, including Winter and March Break, as well as TDSB exam periods.
If you have any questions about MOCA’s Youth Council or the application process, contact learning@moca.ca
Hear From Past Creative Youth Members
Creative Youth Archive
Spring 2026: Lost in Transmediation
Lost in Transmediation explored the journey between mediums from the perspective of a generation raised online. Responding to the works of Kimsooja and Sara Cwynar, this exhibition re-contextualizes transmediation, the process of translating a work into a different medium, by featuring artworks that place modern technology in conversation with its analogue predecessors.
Bringing together a group of emerging young artists from diverse backgrounds, Creative Youth’s exhibition emphasized notions of childhood, identity, and the future in an era more alienated from the natural world than ever before, challenging the ways we view and interact with society. From paint to pixels, canvas to computer, this multimedia approach reflected the unique path teens take in a world of new technology and new rules.
This youth-led exhibition was also paired with interactive public programmes that encouraged togetherness through conversation and art-making. Creative Youth presented a workshop that used fabric, felt, thread, and beads to create small artworks, reflecting on personal identity and expression. Throughout the day, youth also led tours of their art in dialogue with the surrounding exhibitions.
Fall 2025: The Art of Seeing
The Art of Seeing explored the concept of ‘spectacle’ through photography. In response to MOCA’s Jeff Wall Photographs 1984-2023 exhibition, Creative Youth invited audiences to consider how images influence the way we see ourselves, each other, and the everyday world around us.
Originally meaning ‘to look’ in Latin, today the term spectacle is commonly understood as a visually striking event that elicits excitement and wonder. The Fall 2025 Creative Youth cohort expanded this definition by exploring individual experiences of spectacle. Through photography, MOCA’s Youth Council artists considered how perception can locate spectacle in the ordinary.
Inspired by Jeff Wall’s artistic practice and to animate their own pop-up exhibition, Creative Youth also led a workshop that taught collaging techniques and encouraged teen participants to experiment with photographic techniques of selection and composition. Youth Council members also led drop-in tours that linked their individual artworks with photographic practice of Jeff Wall.
Spring 2025: Quarter Century / Spring
Quarter Century / Spring investigated the many ways 1925 is mirrored in 2025—through politics, art, and culture, drawing parallels between modernity and history as a lens through which to examine renewal and the human condition.
From political polarization to apathy, and the creation of art that tests its own boundaries, the spring of a new century often marks a moment of transformation and vibrancy. Inspired by Justin Ming Yong’s exhibition Blur, the project explored the patterns shared by both of these eras of rapid change, shifting identities, and visions of the future through textile and video works.
Aiming to create a space for conversation, connection and community-building, the exhibition was presented alongside a hand-stitching workshop. Based in the tradition of communal craft circles, this workshop led by Creative Youth offered a space to slow down, share stories, and reflect on the exhibition’s themes.
Fall 2024: Future Ruins: Memorializing Fragments Of A City In Flux
The Fall 2024 Creative Youth season culminated in a collaborative exhibition and workshop that aimed to address the question: How can we mourn buildings that experience change and development in an urban landscape? Future Ruins invited reflections on the impermanence of architecture and its infrastructure. Explored through a case study of demolished and re-adaptive architecture, Future Ruins engaged with archival material, found objects, and artefacts from the loss of collective and personal buildings and sites. The works in Future Ruins contend with the changing built environment, offering commemorations in the form of artworks.
Accompanying the exhibition was a Paper Flower workshop that addressed the themes of morality and mourning. The workshop was led by council members and led participants through the delicate practice of origami paper-folding, aiming to apply the motif of flowers as an expression of sympathy, grief, love, celebration, and respect for the dead.
Spring 2024: Through the Eyes of Us
Through the Eyes Of Us was a series of public programmes that included a zine exhibition, a workshop, and a panel discussion. Inspired by Toronto’s rich cultural history, his programme raised the question of “how do stories affect the lives of young people”?
The exhibition portion of Through the Eyes of Us presented a collection of zines created by council members that approached Toronto’s lore, from family chronicles, to folk tales, to ecological histories. Each exhibiting zine artist drew on their personal experiences, culture, and place within Toronto. Drawing from this experience, the council also offered a zine-making workshop and subsequent panel discussion in which they addressed the question “ What do world-building and lore mean to you”?
Fall 2023: Sterling Road Punks
The Fall 2023 Creative Youth season dedicated their energies towards a pop-up exhibition titled Sterling Road Punks, inspired by the century-long history of the Tower Automotive Building prior to its redevelopment as the Auto BLDG. The exhibition was inspired by the period of vacancy from 2006 to 2017, when the site was purportedly used as a space for underground raves, parties, and gatherings. The exhibition was created with the goal of presenting works that are both interactive and participant-focused and included a photography wall and polaroid camera for visitor use.
Spring 2023: Alternative Futures
This season of Creative Youth focused on the theme of “Alternative Futures” through their development of a guided media art walk and day of additional curated programmes titled Creative Youth Takeover. The walk provided an immersive experience that celebrated the visions of young artists for a new future, featuring media art, gifs, videos, augmented reality, and other multimedia expressions. The programme was presented thematically, taking visitors through works responding to Dystopian Perspectives, Utopian Perspectives, and Spectrum of Alternatives.
Creative Youth Takeover began with performances by council members, highlighting their skills in Indigenous hoop dance, music, and poetry and was followed by art-making activities,an exhibition tour of Kapwani Kiwanga’s exhibition Remediation, and closed with a panel discussion. The panel discussion, titled Youth Art Matters allowed the opportunity to discuss the importance of youth arts and their vision for the future. Questions ranged from the impact of art on communities to challenges facing youth artists today.
FAQ
Why should I take part in Creative Youth
- Get experience in a real arts environment
- Begin to establish your professional artist networks
- Gain leadership experience
- Build your résumé, portfolio, or school applications, including reference letter support
Who can apply and how?
All youth between the ages of 15–18 are welcome and encouraged to apply to MOCA’s Creative Youth. No experience is necessary — simply come with an enthusiasm and interest in the arts.
What can I expect from the programme?
- Learn in creative and art-based ways
- Support from MOCA staff and partners in your learning
- Develop a network of youth artists and youth arts leaders
- Become an effective leader, learning about community-engaged work in the Museum, both in practice and in theory
- Plan and implement a community programme that will serve your creative interests at MOCA
What is the commitment? Do I have to be at all the sessions?
Weekly sessions run on Tuesdays, and other select dates, from October 2026 to May 2027. We will break for holidays, including Winter Break and March Break, as well as the TDSB exam period in January. Full attendance is required for all participants.
We do recognize that capacity can vary, that life gets busy, and that attending all sessions may not be possible. Participants must communicate absences in advance where possible. Prior commitments and expected absences must be communicated 48-hours in advance.
How many youth will be a part of the programme
Up to 20 youth will be selected to participate in each Creative Youth cohort.
I missed the deadline for Creative Youth! How can I still be involved?
Even if you missed the deadline, additional opportunities are available throughout the year for emerging youth artists and youth with a keen interest in contemporary art. Creative Youth happens twice a year coinciding with school semesters. Visit our Instagram or sign up for our monthly newsletter to stay up to date with upcoming opportunities.
What are the accessibility considerations for Creative Youth?
Creative Youth encourages applications from young arts enthusiasts of all skill levels and identities, including but not limited to: 2S, queer, trans, and questioning youth; Black, Indigenous, and youth of colour; youth who live with disabilities; youth who live with mental illness, physical illness, neurodivergence, and those with other accessibility needs. Please find more information regarding accessibility at MOCA here.
What is the criteria for selection?
We are looking for a diverse group of youth across ages, disciplines, interests, and communities. We are also looking for youth who have a keen interest in the contemporary arts, and if that interest has been demonstrated before through previous leadership experience, all the better!
That being said, previous experience in art creation, arts administration, or creative community building is not required.
Creative Youth is designed for enthusiastic students aged 15-18 who can commit to weekly meetings, participate in sessions and collaborate with their peers to create a successful programme.
Image Credits: Fall 2024 Youth Council, Future Ruins, MOCA Toronto, 2024. | Spring 2024 Youth Council, Through The Eyes of Us, MOCA Toronto, 2024. | Fall 2023 Youth Council, Sterling Road Punks, MOCA Toronto, 2023. | Spring 2023 Youth Council, Alternative Futures, MOCA Toronto, 2023.