BCA’s Public Art Residency program supports two artists or artist teams each year to activate our public plaza and other areas across BCA campus with interactive, temporary public art. This process-oriented residency provides an opportunity for artists to experiment with their craft, develop focus, and engage in active public dialogue. We encourage residents to connect with the public not only through the completed artwork, but also throughout the process of developing and realizing the project.

Beginning in 2021, our Public Art Residency program supports an annual Summer/Fall project as well as an annual Spring project.

The Public Art Residency program is open to applicants whose work takes a broad range of forms. We encourage applicants whose practice includes: dance and movement-based aspects, theatre and writing-based aspects, and/or engagement with installation, sound, or other innovative media. A key element of any application is the connection the artist is interested in exploring between the germination and development of a rich creative idea and its active life connecting with the community outside the artist’s studio.

Public Artist Residents are selected through a juried, open-call process; applications are reviewed based on the elements of BCA’s stated Artistic Ethos.

Dance Lab at Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) offers resources for dance-based artists to research, expand, and rebuild work at varying stages of development. Designed to amplify and support a project over the course of a five-week time period, Dance Lab at BCA offers three dance-based artists support for research, development, rehearsal, outreach, and mentorship. Resources will be tailored for dancers at all stages of experience and point of their artistic arc for the selected project.

If you would like to learn more about the program please contact Andrea Blesso, Director of Dance & Interdisciplinary Arts.

Considered Boston’s most comprehensive dance-focused residency, the Boston Dancemakers Residency is designed to support new work from conception to performance. Produced through a partnership between Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) and Boston Dance Alliance (BDA), this intensive Dancemakers Residency offers incubation elements for research, experimentation, artistic risk-taking, and growth within the dance industry in a customized manner for the artist’s practice. Two choreographers selected for this opportunity will receive support for research, development, rehearsal, production support, marketing and mentorship.

Boston Center for the Arts’ ACTivate Residency will award seven-day residencies to individuals and small groups of artists to create site-responsive work in the historic Cyclorama. The work can be performative and/or visual in nature and is meant to activate artists and our spaces. Although residents can focus on the presentation of a completed piece, the intention of the ACTivate Residency is to open up space for deep exploration of an idea or concept over the course of the residency. ACTivate is open to all Boston-based visual, performing, and interdisciplinary artists with priority given to BIPOC, Immigrant, and New American artists, and their collaborators.

Applications will be evaluated by guest panelists.

In 2012, the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation initiated a multidisciplinary residency program on the site of Rauschenberg's former home and studio in Captiva, Florida. Inspired by Rauschenberg's early years at Black Mountain College where an artistic community brought out elements central to his art: exploration and collaboration, the residency advances new work, extends practices into diverse mediums, and serves as a research and development lab. It fosters the ideal that artistic practice advances mutual understanding.

The Rauschenberg Residency serves over ~100 emerging and established artists + scholars annually through five-week residencies.  The 20-acre site that spans the island from the Gulf of Mexico to Pine Island Sound stimulates cross-disciplinary collaborations, as well as engenders a focus on the conservation of a sensitive and pristine environment and integration with local surroundings.  The residency supports risk-taking, experimentation and innovation.

Although there are few expectations or requirements, the Rauschenberg Residency aspires to nurture and support the creative spirit, which can be realized only in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect. The Foundation has a zero tolerance discrimination policy and is deeply committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and equal opportunity for all persons.

Expand your artistic practice, develop your talents and your full artistic potential!

Come and enjoy a concentrated work period in a quiet rural area north of Athens, Greece to research and expand your artistic practice. The IRIS Artist Coaching Residency offers you a unique opportunity to develop your talents and explore new trails in your artistic expression. With years of experience in artistic talent development, we will support your development to your full artistic potential. These coaching residencies will offer you the time, space and support you need to make major transformations in your artistic development.

The IRIS Artist Coaching Residencies are open to beginning and established artists, students and creatives of all ages and backgrounds. The residency is situated in the private home of artist Annette Luycx, a villa in the midst of olive groves and vineyards near the village of Afidnes, at a 45 minute drive from the center of Athens, and a 5 minute drive from the local train station that brings you to Athens, where museums and galleries give plenty of new inspiration for your artistic work. The natural atmosphere of peace and silence give ample opportunity for concentrated work; an ideal environment for self-reflection and artistic growth. Artists have their own private en suite air-conditioned room and shared studio space. 

A stay at the IRIS Artist Residency is an especially rewarding experience that offers artists a clearing of the lens!

Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts offers residency sessions that provide artists with uninterrupted time to focus on their practices in our state-of-the-art ceramics studio. During a session, up to sixteen artists form a creative community as they live and work together on campus. Participants enjoy 24-hour studio access and comfortable on-campus accommodations in single or double occupancy rooms.

Watershed’s residency model prioritizes the development of creative community. Artists work alongside one another in our open-concept studio while forging lasting personal and professional connections.

Each two-week Summer Residency session has a theme and a core group of artists who anchor the session. Additional artists join the session through our application process, often drawn by an interest in the session theme. Watershed provides housing and all meals with food sourced from local organic farms.

The four-week Fall Residency offers a retreat-like atmosphere without any thematic structure. Artists live and work alongside one another and cook for themselves.

Nocefresca is a residency that brings together artists, designers, writers and creative nomads from around the world. Our objective is for artists to focus on their projects while experiencing the inspiring environment of Sardinia island, Italy, rich in nature, history and culture.

As a Nocefresca resident, you will be encouraged to self-direct your research with curatorial assistance, initiate new projects and explore original ways of working. Together with you, there will be other artists constituting a vibrant small community of different ages and geographical origins.



In this way, artists will have access to the experiences and activities that best support their artistic growth. With Nocefresca, participants can find professional support for the development of their projects regardless of the outcome, even in the delicate initial phase when any result is still uncertain.

The residency is primarily self-directed and, as an artist, you are expected to be self-sufficient in your practice. However, Nocefresca organizes some activities to help you fuel your artistic process:

- Presentation of each one's practice to the group

- Individual meetings with the curator for assistance and feedback

- Opportunity to propose site-specific projects, talks and workshops

- Final open-studio event, open to the public

- Outdoor excursions and explorations, screening of films, visiting artists and social activities with the local community are extra activities that can happen spontaneously

The Good Hart Artist Residency offers 10-21 day residency stays to visual artists, writers, and composers at any stage of their career. Each artist is housed in a private residence with a detached studio and provided with a $500.00 stipend, a kitchen stocked with basic foods, a few home-cooked meals from local hosts, and a quiet setting along the shores of Lake Michigan. Tucked into the woods along the “Tunnel of Trees,” a Scenic Heritage Route, residents can walk into the village of Good Hart, enjoy Lake Michigan and the nearby sand dunes, and explore Northern Michigan’s inland lakes and wetlands. The Good Hart Artist residency generally hosts one resident at a time, offering each artist the time, space, and quiet to focus and create. 

Community is central to the mission of the Good Hart Artist Residency. Open Studio Saturdays offer visual artists an opportunity to share their work with local residents for one Saturday during their stay, and the annual Harbor Springs Festival of the Book connects resident writers to both local and literary communities. Each artist collaborates with a local nonprofit organization during their stay to lead an educational event, workshop, or exhibition. Please visit our local partnerships page for additional information about these collaborations.