session 2026

What is Session?

Session provides artists a 1200sf workspace in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn and 6-10 weeks to develop a new inquiry-based project meant to push the boundaries of their practice. They will receive an artist honorarium, planning meeting fees, project expenses, technical support, and mentorship collectively valued at approximately $22,500-$25,000. Throughout the session, we will facilitate public interactions with the Recess community, as well as connections among intentional communities as identified by each artist. Our hope is that these engagements provide an opportunity for mutually beneficial exchanges that not only refine the artists’ thinking, but that challenge dominant social narratives and activate new forms of artmaking.

Based on the success of our current experimental Session cycle, we will once again host a biannual open call. In addition to the 5 Session artists selected for the 2026-27 season, we will also maintain relationships with a small cohort of applicants to further develop their proposals toward the 2027-28 season. We will also leave flexibility in the schedule for re-engaging Session alumni and/or for hosting projects with collaborating organizations advancing racial and economic justice.

All Session artists are expected to engage with Recess’s other main program Assembly. Founded in 2016, Assembly offers system-impacted young people aged 18-26 an inroad to art and connections to working artists, while serving as an alternative to incarceration and its intersecting systems of oppression. The curriculum empowers young people to take charge of their own life story and envision a future through art. See the section below for how these interactions may take place.

For this open call, we are refining our past Session X Assembly cross-over model, based on two years of experience. We will once again select 1-2 artists/year that have the interest, life experience, facilitation skills, and artistic practices that match Assembly youth's interests and aspirations for this expanded opportunity. Again, they will spend four sessions in the months prior to the start of the Session project as teaching artists, sharing insights from their own personal and professional journey to support Assembly participants’ growth and development. The engagement will begin with a day-long retreat collaboratively organized with Recess staff, and then can include both onsite workshops and offsite experiences. Organically this may result in collaboration between some participants and the artists during the Session period, including contributions to the installation design, input into public programming, development of project takeaways, and/or participation as performer or facilitator.

This year, all Session applicants will have the opportunity to be considered for this additional Session X Assembly interaction by checking the box to indicate your interest and by answering three additional questions that will allow us to better understand your intention and preparation to work with Assembly youth. While we don’t expect applicants to provide a full curriculum for their teaching artist phase, we do expect artists to provide a sense of what hard or soft skills Assembly youth might learn, socio-cultural themes they might explore together, and physical experiences or networks to which they might be introduced. There is an additional $1200 honorarium for individuals and $1500 for multiple artists/collectives allotted beyond a traditional Session artist honorarium, along with additional funds as needed for approved materials, transportation, and hospitality costs.

Is Session a Good Fit For You

Session is not a traditional residency program in which artists are provided “time away” to produce work. Structured engagement with staff, youth, peer supporters, and invited communities should benefit your project rather than burden it.

Session is not an exhibition opportunity to present fully realized art works to a general public. Artists should be able to identify key audience(s) that would help build upon and fulfill the project’s premise and purpose, as well as strategies to reach out to them.

We expect the physical manifestation of the project to change and grow throughout the Session. Artists should be able to describe how their project would look and feel at the start, and how its trajectory might evolve over the two months.

Recess partners with artists to build a more just and equitable creative community and society. Does your project demonstrate radical thinking towards imagining and shaping networks of resilience and safety?