artist residencies at folkist space
After five years of hosting artist residents, we’re getting a clearer idea of who thrives in this program. We’re also finding clearer language for what we’ve been doing all along— creating a space to support folk artists.
Please, whatever you do, don’t try to look up a definition of “folk arts!” You’ll find a lot of academic word salad that uses terms like “simple people” and “primitive technique.” As a life-long practitioner of social music and art traditions whose masters practice craft with a nuance and rigor to rival any conservatory-trained artist, those definitions truly feel like they were written by outsiders who missed the whole-ass point.
At Folkist Space, our definition of folk art is creative work with its roots in, or branches into, the everyday lives of regular working people. The folk art we love spans genres, mediums, and cultures, but is always rooted in the urgent aliveness of folks who are not separate from the world but fully immersed in it. These artists— many of whom fit a serious art practice around bill-paying, caregiving, and community commitments— are finding a way to feel something that needs to be felt, share something that needs to be shared, and move people who need to be moved.
The mission of the Folkist Space Residency is to support visionary creators whose work does what folk art does best: help us to feel our feelings, inhabit our bodies, and move a little differently through the world.
From textile arts to creative non-fiction, traditional music and dance, documentary photography, theatre arts, and more, we're looking for all kinds of creative folks whose locus of creation is primarily centered outside traditional academic and institutional structures of support.
About the residency
Our artist residency programs began as a response to our own experiences as working artists with bill-paying jobs. Time, solitude, and institutional support can make an enormous difference when you are developing your voice and your work— but that kind of space is often out of reach for creatives with financial constraints and/or caregiving responsibilities.
We knew that the world was full of talented, serious artists who could not attend programs that required long stays or a large financial commitment, and these short, funded residencies were designed with those artists in mind.
AVAILABLE DATES: To be selected for a residency, you (and your collaborator/s if applicable) must be available for at least one of the following residency dates:
- Feb 3rd - 9th, 2025
- Feb 17th - 23rd, 2025
- Mar 31st - Apr 6th, 2025
- Apr 14th - 20th, 2025