An Ecology of Exchange
An interdisciplinary residency exploring interstitial practices between body, earth, and place.
Joshua Tree, California · September 2026 · 3.5 weeks · 3 residents · $1,200 per resident
A Small, Interdisciplinary Residency in the High Desert
An Ecology of Exchange is a 3.5-week self-funded residency in Joshua Tree designed for artists and writers whose practices explore the relationship between landscape, the body, perception, and place.
This September, three residents from different creative disciplines are invited to share time, space, and conversation across two houses in the high desert. The residency is intentionally small, creating an environment where residents can maintain focused individual practices while having the opportunity for meaningful exchange with people who think and work differently.
We are especially interested in bringing together practitioners whose work engages the landscape of the earth and the landscape of the body — through movement, sound, language, image, performance, research, or other forms of artistic inquiry.
The residency is open to music composers, writers and poets, choreographers and dance artists, visual and interdisciplinary artists, and artists working with ephemeral, performance, video, installation, or research-based practices.
We also welcome journalists, scientists, and other researchers who have an active artistic or creative practice and are interested in participating as artists within an interdisciplinary environment.
The Residency
The desert is not simply a backdrop for the residency. It is an active context for thinking, noticing, making, and exchanging ideas.
Residents are invited to bring their own questions and projects to Joshua Tree while remaining open to the influence of the other residents and the landscape around them. There is no required collaborative project or predetermined theme. Instead, the residency creates the conditions for cross-pollination — the possibility that one person's way of seeing may alter another person's way of working.
The structure balances solitude with intentional opportunities for exchange.
Each resident has dedicated private space for their work and access to shared living areas and a movement studio. Two houses accommodate the three residents, allowing for both privacy and informal interaction.
A 3.5-Week Arc
Week 1 — Arrival & Orientation
Residents arrive and settle into the houses and their individual practices.
An opening gathering introduces the residents to one another and provides an opportunity to share current projects, questions, and interests. Rather than establishing a formal agenda, this conversation begins to reveal the points of connection and difference between the three practices. Residents are also invited to tour the area with the residency director. A welcome dinner is provided for the residents.
Week 2 — Exchange & Exploration
Residents continue their individual work while participating in informal conversations and shared experiences.
The desert itself becomes part of the exchange: walking, observing, listening, moving, researching, writing, making, and noticing how different disciplines perceive the same place.
A mid-residency conversation provides space for residents to share what is emerging in their work and what they are discovering through contact with one another. Residents are given access to various desert experiences like swiming pools, bowling, desert activities (depending on season and availability).
Week 3 — Cross-Pollination
As the residency develops, residents gather to consider how their practices, questions, and ways of seeing may have influenced one another.
The emphasis is not on producing a finished collaborative work, but on recognizing what can emerge when different forms of knowledge and artistic practice occupy the same space over time.
Final Days — Sharing & Public Connection
The residency concludes with an informal Cross-Pollination Session, where residents share something from their time in Joshua Tree — a work-in-progress, reading, performance, conversation, recording, research, or other form of exchange.
Where possible, we will facilitate the connection of residents with the local desert arts community through a local journalist, gallery, higher EDU school, radio program, or other community partners depending on availability.
The goal is not a formal “final exhibition,” but an opportunity to let the questions and discoveries of the residency move beyond the houses and into the surrounding community. We believe the residents of the desert and artists can learn a lot from each other.
Who Should Apply
We welcome emerging, mid-career, and established practitioners with an active creative practice.
We are particularly interested in:
- Writers and poets
- Music composers and sound artists
- Choreographers and dance artists
- Performance artists
- Visual artists
- Video and installation artists
- Interdisciplinary artists
- Artists working with landscape, ecology, embodiment, perception, or place
- Researchers, scientists, and journalists with an active artistic practice
You do not need to identify your work as “environmental art” to apply.
We are interested in artists who are curious about how the body and the earth can both be understood as landscapes — and who are willing to let their thinking be influenced by other disciplines, other practices, and the desert itself.
What the Residency Offers
- 3.5 weeks in Joshua Tree, California
- Private sleeping and personal space within two shared houses
- Welcome Dinner
- Shared kitchen and living spaces
- Access to a dedicated movement/yoga studio
- Time and space for focused individual work
- A small interdisciplinary cohort of three residents
- Opening, mid-residency, and closing group conversations
- A structured Cross-Pollination Session
- Opportunities for connection with the local desert arts and cultural community
- Potential public-facing opportunities through journalism, radio, galleries, schools, or community gatherings
- Good bye gathering.
- Desert Activities
This is a working residency, not a retreat or workshop. Residents are responsible for developing their own work during the stay and for participating in the spirit of exchange that makes the residency possible.
Cost
$1,200 per resident for the full 3.5-week September session.
The fee covers residency housing, shared amenities, access to the movement studio and other spaces, and the residency's programming and and connections.
Residents are responsible for travel, meals, materials, and personal expenses.
Because this is a self-funded residency, there is no stipend - but we do pay for some activities group dinners and facilitate connections to journalists and galleries interested in promoting the artists.
Why a Self-Funded Residency?
The residency is intentionally designed as a small, accessible alternative to highly competitive fully funded programs.
The $1,200 fee allows the residency to offer a carefully structured three-and-a-half-week experience in Joshua Tree while keeping the cohort small and the environment personal.
The aim is simple: give artists meaningful time, space, and proximity to other ways of thinking.
About the Founder
[Your Name] is an interdisciplinary artist and movement practitioner whose work has centered on the relationship between the body, perception, and environment for more than 20 years.
She earned a BFA in Live Performance from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA in Video Installation and Interdisciplinary Art from Pacific Northwest College of Art. As a choreographer, she worked in the hybrid world of live performance and video installation across the United States and Europe. At the same time, she founded and operated a physical rehabilitation studio using dance and Pilates-based movement practices to help people discover movement as a path to healing.
This dual experience — working simultaneously within experimental art and embodied movement practice — shapes the residency's interest in different ways of knowing, observing, and understanding the body and the world around it.
She created An Ecology of Exchange to provide artists with something she found essential throughout her own career: time, space, and the possibility of being changed by another person's way of seeing.
September 2026 Session
Location: Joshua Tree, California
Dates: September 5 - 30
Length: 3.5 weeks
