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Artist as Instigator

Artist As Instigator Residency text graphic
Our next Artist as Instigator Residency will run from Fall 2024 to Summer 2025.
Please contact Associate Director Tiff Beatty at [email protected] with any questions.

Artist as Instigator Residency Program

Our Artist as Instigator Residency leverages arts and culture to make creative public policy interventions around housing and related issues. The annual residency supports artists, activists, and cultural workers to incubate ideas and produce new work.

In collaboration, and with support from the National Public Housing Museum, the Artist as Instigator develops and launches a new project to address inequity in housing and related issues.

The selected artist receives a $10,000 unrestricted honorarium upon confirmation of participation and a $10,000 budget for project expenses.

In addition to financial support, the National Public Housing Museum provides programming and publicity support, helps the artist make and develop connections with researchers, historians, other artists and cultural workers, as well as community-based organizations, and public audiences passionate about housing justice. The National Public Housing Museum also provides exhibition space, and other in-kind resources, including accommodations for disability accessibility needs of artists, partners, and program participants.

The residency does not currently include live or work space. Beyond the 1-year residency, we seek to sustain generative and mutually beneficial relationships with Artists as Instigators and their collaborators.


Meet our Current Artist as Instigator

ShaDawn

Dr. ShaDawn “Boobie” Battle

Dr. ShaDawn “Boobie” Battle was selected from a competitive pool of 86 national applicants. A multidisciplinary artist, researcher, activist, and educator whose work spans mediums including documentary films, performances, and public talks, Battle was selected from a large and competitive pool of nationwide applicants. Her creative practice is rooted in transformative justice and creating platforms for the most marginalized communities to engage in truth-telling practices.

As the museum’s fifth Artist as Instigator, Battle will leverage the residency to develop, and create a new work, “Place, Space, Werkz,” a multi-dimensional project that weaves together oral histories and scholarship about the evolution of Chicago Footwork dance through workshops, creative placemaking, and performances that examine the art form in relation to oppressive systems, practices, and structures.

Past Artists as Instigators

Our dynamic roster of Artists as Instigators continue to inspire and contribute to our work with communities and partner organizations working to make public policy interventions that contribute creativity and inspiration that helps to build more equitable communities for all.