Artist in Resident Sessions (AIRsessions or just AIR) is a music workshop series focused on community connections, safer space building, and artist mentorship. Founded in 2018, this series was created to address the need for a sustainable, recurring music programming for youth and young adults. Taking a decolonized approach to music knowledge transfer and interaction, the sessions were crafted to allow for vulnerability with the intent to develop a variety of music skills and create art. The long term vision is to help develop the next generation of Indigenous artists and industry folks and connect them with their peers, industry, and established artists.

First started in 2018 as an in-person event hosted in the heart of the Winnipeg community, AIR has expanded to include online programming, and features Indigenous musician mentors from across the country, and reaches participants from coast to coast to coast.

Founder and Curator Ila Barker developed and launched this program with an abundance of mentorship and financial support from the National Arts Centre (NAC), and in-kind support from Indigenous Music at Manitoba Music, and sākihiwē festival (Aboriginal Music Manitoba). In 2021 Barker was awarded the Long Term Programs grant through the Creating, Knowing and Sharing stream at Canada Council for the Arts, securing three years of full-program funding. The NAC then handed the program ownership over to Barker to support the program in becoming fully by Indigenous, for Indigenous.