Side Street Projects is requesting proposals for our upcoming 2024-’25 Artist Residency titled, Possibility Prances: A place for matters to rest. This residency is offered to artists or collectives interested in developing an interactive, community-engaged art project with a Trauma-Informed Care approach. The residency will take place between November 2024 and June 2025 based on the availability of applicants.
What is the mission of this residency?
The Possibility Prances: A place for matters to rest residency is available for artists interested in developing socially engaged projects in connection to the communities Side Street Projects serves. Projects should aim to honor process over product and make space for regeneration, deep listening, and peer-to-peer mentorship.
Previous artists have used this opportunity as an incubation space for a larger project, as some projects continue beyond the scope of this residency’s timeline.
This project is funded by the Pasadena Community Foundation and is intended to serve folks who reside in or have a meaningful connection to the City of Pasadena and Altadena. Side Street Projects maintains a range of community partners who can potentially inform and collaborate with the projects. We honor our relationships and partners as precious resources. We recognize that resource abundance is also connected to the strength and care of our relationships.
About the theme: Possibility Prances: A place for matters to rest
As an extension of last year's residency theme, centered around *Trauma Informed Care (TIC) artists will develop projects and/or programs that create ongoing connections and are mutually beneficial with our surrounding community while considering TIC principles.
This residency theme manifested out of Side Street Project’s ever-growing goal of supporting our community through a TIC lens. Three of our core staff members recently participated in a TIC training led by Dr. Lee Porscha Moore. It culminated with the three members training all Side Street Projects staff, Teaching Artists, and current Artists-in-residence on the fundamentals of TIC relative to our mission and programs. We are excited to continue to implement our learnings and invite artists to develop projects that help us further our TIC practices, and effectively meet our communities’ needs.
An important aspect of Trauma Informed Care is fostering cyclical and open dialogue with the communities we work within. Through our annual survey, community members and partners expressed their hopes for more consistent, communal, and collaborative programming. Artists-in-residence should use this feedback as a guiding principle in developing their project.
Our intention is to increase the capacity of Side Street Projects and artists who are already doing Trauma-Informed, collaborative work in their practice and collectively grow our ability to create conditions for healing in our communities. Trauma-informed training and resources will be provided as a part of this residency. All artists who run Side Street Projects have already undergone initial, foundational training.
The following poem is intended to expand on the description above and call in with gratitude all of the benevolent artists, beings, and forces that are going to shape and animate the spirit of the, Possibility Prances: A place for matters to rest, residency. Artists are equally encouraged to respond to the text in their proposals if it feels appropriate.
Who we are looking for in Possibility Prances: A place for matters to rest
We seek artists/collectives interested in or who have experience with TIC and intergenerational community engagement.
Preference will be given to *justice-impacted artists and/or collectives. (*see definition below)
Artists of all mediums are encouraged to apply.
What does the Artist Residency support?
Artist/Collective Honorarium: $3,000
Materials Budget: approximately $500
Trauma-Informed Training
Public Programming
Budgeted staff time, based on the individual needs of the residency
Budget, resources, and support
Side Street Projects will offer an honorarium of $3,000 per artist or collective and a materials budget of approximately $500. We will also offer access to space, tools, and staff support through the facilitation, marketing, and execution of the projects. Artists will be required to participate in TIC training alongside Side Street Projects artists. Each artist will be given a staff time budget, based on the individual needs of their residency.
The project should be designed to work within the budget. The artist's time and efforts are valuable, and it is a goal of this residency that the artist be paid in full for the scope of their work. We ask that the artist(s) take the budget into consideration when determining the scale of the proposed project.
We work through the lens of DIY(do-it-yourself)/DIT(do-it-together) values, including using resources respectfully with a regenerative and symbiotic relationship with the environment and the communities they come from.
About Side Street Projects
Founded in 1992, Side Street Projects is an artist-run organization that connects professional artists directly to communities through programs that include skill-sharing, creative problem-solving, and intergenerational creativity.
Our mission is to give artists of all ages the ability and means to support their creative endeavors. We are devoted to community-centered artists through community-led programming that promotes creativity, well-being, and the potential for collective growth.
We do this through our educational programs and artist projects that create safe places for our community to gather, connect, and make art.
We incubate artist projects at our temporary headquarters and off-site in collaboration with partners. We host both established and emerging artists with the goal of cross-pollination, mentorship, and community building. All artist projects are woven into the free programming that we offer to the community. These projects create a ripple effect and sometimes evolve into programs.
The community of artists that is Side Street Projects is also greater than Side Street Projects. We hold a great deal of history in LA County as a community art project space and serve as a connective tissue supporting the larger network of artists and organizations doing social justice work on the ground.
Please apply via the online application by September 22nd, at 11:59 pm PT. If digital work samples are too large to submit via the application link, still submit the online application and instead email samples to opencall@sidestreet.org
Watch our Artist Residency Informational Meeting where we talk about the application process and answer questions.
Applications will be reviewed by a panel of Side Street artists on the board and staff.
This project is funded by the Pasadena Community Foundation.
