2021 North Louisiana Virtual Residency

The Ross Lynn Charitable Foundation (RLCF) and the North Central Louisiana Arts Council (NCLAC) are excited to announce the 2021 North Louisiana Virtual Residency. The 2021 North Louisiana Virtual Residency will occur from February 8th to April 2nd with up to 16 artists (8 pairs). This eight week online residency will provide the virtual space and rhythm for artists to come together as a community and collaborate in pairs on new work. RLCF and NCLAC are offering this because, in this time of uncertainty and upheaval, they are remembering that art has always allowed humanity to understand and explain both the inner and outer worlds, bringing to life realities in a tangible substance that can be shared, retold, and reinterpreted in unending ways.

The organisers desire to foster a communal and collaborative environment — a sharing of this experience between artists as they process this period of life in their art and in turn give voice and vision to all who experience the collective work. To do this they will utilize a closed Facebook group, full group Zoom huddles, smaller break-out huddles, and maintain a central resource page on the Ross Lynn website. It is expected that residents will spend at minimum 2 hours per week mostly consisting of the weekly Zoom huddle, coordinating with their resident partner, and thinking about the prompts.

• Closed Facebook Group: They will create a Facebook Group specifically for the residents where they can share thoughts, WIP (work in progress) updates, and respond to prompts the residency assistants will provide. It will allow for the opportunity for a constant stream of conversation to be maintained throughout the residency as well as making it easier to share photos, videos, excerpts, and other digital friendly mediums.
• Zoom Huddles: Every week all residents and at least one residency assistant will “huddle up” via Zoom. We will have two types of huddles during the duration of the residency, full group huddles and break-out huddles. Half of the huddles will be full group, with everyone together in one session to discuss and share perspectives with each other, led by prompts. The other half of the huddles will have residents going into break-out rooms for smaller group discussions. These small group settings help foster community formation. These meetings will be scheduled at the same time each week to help provide stability. The huddles themselves will have a balance of structure and flexibility to encourage dialog and discovery. Residency assistants will be included to listen to the participants, to record the huddles, offer input, introduce topics/thoughts as needed, and moderate the conversations to help insure supportive/creative life-giving words. These are not platforms for criticism nor debate but support and encouragement of one another and the creative process.

After the completion of the residency, the artist pairs will be tasked to continue working on their projects. Each pair will have 6 months to bring the project to a finished format that is ready for public exhibition. The organisers will ask for progress updates with the pairs every 2 months. In keeping with the virtual format of the residency itself, the exhibition will be fully online and viewable to anyone with internet access.

• Artist talk series: Each resident pair will be provided the opportunity to be interviewed on their work and experience during the North Louisiana Virtual Residency. The interviews are then edited into short artist talks that are made publicly available after the residency. The series as a whole both shows the process and impact of the residency while also providing a resource for other artists to take inspiration from. You can view artist talks from the previous residency here.
• Finished work: The artist pairs will provide a digital copy of the original work (either photograph/video of physical/performance works or copy of digital works) developed during or inspired by the AiR within 6 months of the residency. The artist pairs will retain ownership of copyright for their donated work, but RLCF & NCLAC will be granted permission for ongoing use for program promotion, public outreach, and fundraising (to include reproductions), with proceeds benefiting RLCF & NCLAC programing.
• Exhibition: The digital copies of the original work created from the residency experience will be complied with written reflections from each resident into a virtual exhibition for public display by 2022.

The application is online, with a deadline 10th January 2021.