An artist paints storm drains for Austin’s Watershed Protection Department, part of the Fresh Art/Fresh Water Program (photo courtesy City of Austin Watershed Protection)
Austin has launched an artist-in-residence program that embeds an artist within a civic department to create work that supports the local government and engages with the community. Organized by the city’s Cultural Arts Division, the nine-month residency will have the artist respond to specific issues identified by the involved department. Applications are open to those in the Austin metropolitan area and are due by February 16.
Jacob Villanueva and Jeff Clarke, “Below” (2013) (courtesy Philp Rogers Photography)
“The Artist-in-Residence Program will create opportunities for looking at City services and citizen engagement through an artistic lens,” Cultural Arts Division Manager Meghan Wells said in a statement. “Austin is widely regarded for its creative approach to governance, and we are excited to add to that legacy with this dynamic new program that champions both the City and our artistic community.”
The residency launches in March, and the city has already has selected its Watershed Protection Department as the first to participate. The selected artist, who will receive a budget that covers both working hours ($8,750) and related expenses (up to $5,000), will likely focus on boosting the visibility of the department’s programs.
Austin’s residency joins a handful of similar schemes implemented by city governments across the United States. Last year, Los Angeles hired Alan Nakagawa to be its first Creative Catalyst Artist in Residence; he’s currently working with the Department of Transportation to help reduce traffic fatalities. In New York City, Mierle Laderman Ukeles has held a decades-long (unpaid) residency with the Department of Sanitation, communicating with thousands of sanitation workers, and the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) announced in 2015 that Tania Bruguera would have a one-year residency to help the agency engage with undocumented residents. Boston recently entered the second year of its artist-in-residence program, which brings on multiple artists at a time; while three were selected last year, the city now has 10 actively working with departments. Creative CityMaking Minneapolis, although not a residency on paper, pairs a number of community artists with city departments for long-term collaboration, while twin Saint Paul has a nearly 12-year-old “City Artist” program, in which artists work with public agencies to improve their urban environment.
Austin’s addition to this growing roster exemplifies the value of social practice and the tangible impact artists can have on their communities with their particular skills and ways of thinking.
The Latest
Coasting the Topography of South Asian Futurisms
As part of Hyperallergic’s Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators, Sadaf Padder presents an exhibition to offer insight into her curatorial process.
I’m a Florida Drag Queen and I’m Scared
I’m truly at a loss for what to do for work and what kind of life I can expect to live.
Pratt’s 2023 Fine Arts MFA Thesis Exhibition Is On View in Brooklyn
The two-part exhibition features the work of 41 graduating artists across disciplines, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, and integrated practices.
An Artist’s Hopeful Vision of the Ocean
Indonesian artist Mulyana crafts a tactile, mystical world in which fish, whales, and coral reefs coexist with sea monsters.
An Introduction to “Afrogallonism”
Serge Attukwei Clottey explores Ghanaian culture and identity through discarded jerrycans and other found materials.
The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation Presents The Feminine in Abstract Painting
Curated by Jennifer Samet and Andrea Belag, this group exhibition in NYC explores the feminine through aesthetics, as opposed to identity or gender.
A Ride With Liz Cohen
Nothing in the artist’s personal biography could predict that she’d one day become a car builder and bikini model.
LA’s Hammer Museum Wants to Be Seen
After two decades of renovations, the museum that calls itself a “well-kept secret” reopens with a mission to be more visible.
NYU Steinhardt Opens 2023 MFA Thesis Exhibitions
Taking place at 80WSE Gallery in New York’s Greenwich Village, Part I is on view from late March through April while Part II opens in May.
AI-Generated “Dope Francis” Fools the Internet
Many thought the picture of Pope Francis in a puffer jacket, created using Midjourney, was the real deal.
1,400-Year-Old Mural of Two-Faced Man Found in Peru
Historians hypothesize that the Moche paintings could represent artists’ attempts to experiment with portraying movement or narrative.
Miniature Worlds: Joseph Cornell, Ray Johnson, Yayoi Kusama
Through small-scale works, this exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York examines Cornell’s prominent role in the lives and careers of Johnson and Kusama.
Louvre Shutters as Pension Plan Protests Intensify
President Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 has sparked widespread demonstrations across the country.
They Managed to Mess Up an Art Heist Movie
There must be a lesson in Vasilis Katsoupis’s film Inside about the vacuousness of the art market or the claustrophobia of exhibition spaces — I just don’t care.