Studio Residency
“The comfortable, supportive environment just made it a really nice working space. We had freedom to work. We really had freedom and space to work.”
— Caroline Sirois (2025 recipient)
“In terms of our own development, it was a really rich experience. When you collaborate with artists, it pushes you out of your comfort zone. It makes you reconsider your values, what your goal is as an artist... for me, I grew individually as well as collaboratively.
— Caroline Sirois (2025 recipient)
Each year, UVA hosts a 6-8 week residency that provides space for an artist, thinker, curator, or collective to complete a work, develop an idea, test out a particular technique or way of working, or deeply think through concepts and research material for a future project.
Open to any discipline and awarded to one successful applicant, this opportunity is complete with a stipend (to be used at the artist’s discretion), use of the gallery as a studio/working space for the duration of the residency, and assistance from — or collaboration with — UVA staff. At the artist’s discretion, the project culminates in a presentation (performance, screening, short exhibition, lecture, reading, or happening) that showcases works completed and in-progress. Selected artist(s) may also decide to organize public activations and witnessing of the work in process, or invite guest collaborators.
If you have any questions, please email info@unboundvisualarts.org.
Past Residencies
-
J. Grace Giordano will work on Essay, an installation project that positions the gallery as a studio and construction site, and uses making as a form of writing. Each day of the 50 day residency, the space will be built, edited, and revised using a set of systems pulled from linguistics, creating a new, daily iteration of an evolving installation work. These ongoing reconfigurations and the cumulative act of making will be documented through writing and photography, producing a parallel archive of the project as it unfolds. The resulting installations, objects, images, and written publication will form an essay composed across space, image, and text.
-
Artist-in-Residence Caroline Sirois invited nine artists to collaborate over the course of six weeks – taking a deep dive into the concept of gardens/healing gardens integrated with the experiences of ruins. These artists brought a mix of perspectives to their art practice and inquiries through their work as an archival librarian, environmental biologist, writing instructor, UX designer, therapist and studio art teacher. Collaborations during the course of the residency unfolded organically, in different configurations to create unexpected, engaging work around gardens, roots and ruins.