The Santa Fe Art Institute Thematic Residency Program supports dynamic creative practices that engage complex social issues, inspire individual transformation, and inform collective action. SFAI welcomes local, national, and international applicants of all backgrounds.

From the start, SFAI’s programming was developed and informed by artists, who worked to bring awareness to the shifting relationship between art and society, and to redefine and disrupt the traditional gatekeeping roles of art institutions, including outdated labels such as “master” artist.

While our programming, language, and focus has naturally shifted over the years, our mission has remained the same: to foster and explore the interconnections of contemporary art and society, to enliven public discourse on art, and to support and nurture artists at all phases of their careers.

Applications are accepted once a year for our annual theme, which includes our Family Residency Month in July.

Our Writers in Residence Program supports free-to-writers residencies for selected women-identified writers at the retreat each year. Up to 7 writers can be in residence at a time, each housed in a handcrafted cottage. They spend their days in solitude – writing, reading, taking walks in the woods on the property or on nearby Double Bluff beach. In the evenings, “The Gathering” is a social time for residents to connect and share over their freshly prepared meals.

Writers must be women, 18 and older, which is inclusive of transgender women and female-identified individuals. Because gender inequity still occurs in all spaces including literary ones, it is part of our explicit mission to support and promote women’s voices. Residents must be willing to adhere to a specific set of health and safety protocols we have implemented to keep writers, staff, and surrounding communities safer. 

Our application and adjudication processes are genre-specific. Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, TV/Screenwriters, Playwrights, and Songwriters are all encouraged to apply. Applications are read by jurors who are proficient to read in each genre. 

ACRE’s Residency Program takes place every summer in the Driftless region of Wisconsin. Set on 1,000 acres of wetland, hills, and farmland, the residency hosts artists who live and work in a communal setting that includes expansive work spaces, kitchen serving three meals per day, performance stage, wood shop, art and tech facility, and sound, fiber, screenprinting, metalwork, and ceramics studios. Residents are encouraged to balance their time between producing work, contemplating their practice, and engaging with the community. The Visiting Artist program invites established artists to conduct studio visits and present lectures and other experimental programs. Studio staff also offer demos and in-depth workshops to residents. Each year ACRE welcomes approximately 60 emerging, often underrepresented, artists of all disciplines to attend one of three 14-day residency sessions. Residents are selected through a rigorous review process by respected panelists who work in the visual arts from Chicago and across the country.

ACRE practices a participatory leadership structure that enriches our operations and programs, by inviting participants to become key decision-makers for the organization, facilitating community-centered evaluation, soliciting feedback, and practicing a shared dedication to making iterative improvements. Every artist who has participated in the residency is invited to return as staff, serve on a committee, and ultimately direct the future of the organization.

Ucross is a vital and relevant resource for artists of all backgrounds and disciplines, who come from all over the United States and the world. The uninterrupted time and space offered is increasingly rare, and the connections built within the community are of great importance to artists. The Ucross residency program is known for offering a majestic experience of the High Plains, thanks to its location on a 20,000-acre ranch in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains of northern Wyoming.

The artist residency program strives to provide a respectful, comfortable, and productive environment, freeing artists from the pressures and distractions of daily life. Ucross provides each artist with living accommodations, meals, private work space, and uninterrupted time, so the artists can focus on their creative process. Lunch and dinners are prepared Monday through Friday by a professional chef, with access to a world-class kitchen and ample provisions on hand for breakfasts and weekends. Lunches are delivered to individual studios; group dinners take place at 6 p.m. Towels and linens are provided, as is weekly housekeeping for bedrooms. Residents are responsible for providing their own working materials. There is no residency charge, and Ucross offers a $1,500 stipend to defray travel costs.

Penland’s Winter Residency program is a short-term residency opportunity for artists seeking to work independently in one of our 16 media specific studios during Penland’s quiet season. Practicing artists of all backgrounds and at any stage of their career are encouraged to apply for a 2-week or 4-week session. Shared studio access is provided to a small number of artists each session; we invite enough people to encourage conversation and creative camaraderie, but not so many that focused time in the studio is compromised. Residents’ time is their own; there are no workshops, critiques, or required activities. Our goal is to support creative experimentation by offering artists the time, space, and equipment they need to advance professional development.

Penland Winter Residencies are for:

• Artists needing access to facilities for research and development that can be supported by Penland’s well-equipped studios
• Art educators and administrators who are seeking focused studio time during a winter break or sabbatical
• Collaborating artists who want to work on a specific project or simply alongside one another in order to share technical expertise and/or creative inspiration
• Art professionals who need time away from daily responsibilities and distractions to focus on a creative project

Our Visual Arts Residency supports artists in experimenting with their craft and developing their focus or testing new ideas, while also engaging in vital public dialogue. The work of BCA Visual Artist Residents has taken a broad range of forms, including dance and movement-based practices, theatre and writing-based practices, and artists engaged in installation, sound, and other innovative media.

Resources for the program include access to studio space, and additional professional and creative support.

The Visual Arts Residency puts special emphasis on supporting projects that involve direct engagement with the community – whether through collaborative activities, participatory public installations, performance, intervention or other imaginative activation. We seek proposed projects that have public interaction and participation as significant elements.

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.

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.