roman j. witt residency
On behalf of the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design and the Museum of Art (UMMA), we invite you to apply for the 2025 – 2026 Roman Witt Residency, specially themed to explore the upcoming United States Semiquincentennial (2026). We especially encourage social practice, performing, and performance artists with an interest in issues of national identity, commemorative practices and memory, and the history and future of the United States, to apply.
The mission of the Roman J. Witt Residency Program is to support an artist in the production of new work in association with the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design. The program awards one residency per academic year to a visiting artist/designer to create new work at the school while engaging the university community. This will be the fourth iteration of the Witt Residency that is held in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) – previous artists Zafos Xagorias (2018), Courtney McLellan (2020), and Machine Dazzle (2024) also featured performance and/or social practice activations extensively in their work. The selected artist will work with partners at the Museum of Art and the Witt Residency to conceptualize, design, mount and produce a performance, activation, or intervention in the Museum of Art’s Lizzie and Jonathan Tish Apse in the Fall of 2026.
During the Witt Residency, it is expected that the resident actively engages with the Stamps and UMMA community. To this end, a portion of the resident’s time at the university will be spent in direct interaction with students and faculty. Possibilities for interactions include but are not limited to: students working directly with the resident on artistic production; students interviewing resident; students observing resident’s process; resident dialoguing with students and faculty both in and outside of classes; resident providing critiques of student work; resident giving public talks/lectures/workshops; resident hosting open studio hours.
2025 – 2026 Witt Residency Timeline
Dates to be mutually agreed upon between resident and hosts.
Spring 2025
- Resident site visit #1 to the University of Michigan with coordinated orientations to Stamps School of Art & Design, UMMA, and (if appropriate) other campus collaborators
Fall 2025
- Resident site visit #2 for continued research and preliminary scoping of project
Winter 2026
- Scope of project finalized
- Creative residency during Winter term / student engagement
Fall 2026
- Production residency to mount project
- Project is realized during the Fall term
- Artist lecture/presentation in the Penny Stamps Speaker Series