Artistic
Applications are now open for Replenish Residencies
The relationship between human beings and the environment is the defining issue of our time and while we recognize there are other reasons for making art, we have decided to devote our organization to support artists who are interested in engaging this issue with power and imagination.
Through our residencies, A Studio in the Woods looks to facilitate a meaningful relationship between our artists and the community. The people, environment, and culture of Southeastern Louisiana influence our residents, and in turn our artists and their work have a significant impact on the region. In advance of their arrival, staff assesses each artist’s needs and begins to build relationships with the community resources and collaborators that will be crucial in the evolution of their projects.
Residencies are open to artists of all disciplines including visual, musician/composing, performance, literary, new media, and interdisciplinary. Both established and emerging artists are encouraged to apply, but students are not eligible. A rigorous work ethic, dedication to public engagement and demonstrated ability to work with colleagues and wider audiences are expected.
A Studio in the Woods is located at the nexus of the City of New Orleans, a larger 5,000-acre bottomland hardwood forest, the Mississippi River’s lower reaches, the Gulf of Mexico, and the largest swath of alluvial wetlands in North America. Each of these systems has undergone profound changes over the past several decades, creating a dynamic context for artists.
Rising: Climate in Crisis
Applications Closed Rising Residencies invite artists to examine the severity of the climate crisis and be agents of change to guide our collective understanding, response, and vision as we shape our shared future. 2020 - present
Replenish Residencies
Applications Closed Replenish Residencies (formerly Relief Residencies) provide restorative visioning retreats to Greater New Orleans’ BIPOC artists and culture bearers 2020 - present
Emerging Writers’ Residencies
Applications Closed These residencies invited local poets, playwrights, composers, and prose writers (fiction and nonfiction) to apply for one-week residencies at our Writer’s Cabin to support new or ongoing work. 2020-2021
Inaugural Writer Residencies
Applications Closed These one-week residencies support literary artists living in southeast Louisiana in celebration of our newly constructed Writer’s Cabin. 2020-2021
Adaptations: Living with Change
Applications Closed Adaptations Residencies invite artists to examine how climate driven adaptations - large and small, historic and contemporary, cultural and scientific - are shaping our future. 2017 - 2020
Flint & Steel: Sparking Cross-disciplinary Combustion
Applications Closed Designed to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, Flint and Steel Residencies allowed artists to join forces with invested academic partners. 2015 - 2017
Ebb & Flow
Applications Closed Ebb & Flow is based on the premise that Southern Louisiana can be seen as a microcosm of the global environment, manifesting both the challenges and possibilities inherent in human interaction with urban and natural ecosystems. 2011-2014
Changing Landscapes
Applications Closed Inspired by the drastic upheaval in our local ecology, Changing Landscapes residencies were based on the premise that Southern Louisiana can be seen as a microcosm of the global environment, manifesting both the challenges and possibilities inherent in human interaction with the natural world. 2008-2011
Restoration Residencies
Applications Closed In response to the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, A Studio in the Woods created month-long Restoration Residencies for New Orleans visual artists, musicians, composers, writers and performing artists who lost their homes, studios and/or work in the hurricane and were either displaced in other cities and communities or back home in New Orleans without resources. 2006 - 2008
River Residencies
Applications Closed River Residencies honored the Mississippi River, a magnificent body of water that has inspired authors, musicians, artists, historians, and playwrights for over a century yet today is challenged by pollution and containment.
Open Call Residencies
Applications Closed The first juried residencies at A Studio in the Woods.
Pilot Residencies
Applications Closed Where it all started.Upcoming Events
Related News
Artistic Residents
-
Brandon Ballengée Artist, biologist and educator, 2021-23, Louisiana A Studio in the Woods and Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish Government will bring internationally recognized artist, biologist and educator Brandon Ballengée for a community-based residency with at risk Plaquemines Parish coastal communities. Through participatory art and science, Searching for Ghosts of… -
Claire Alexandre Visual Artist, 2022, North Carolina Claire Alexandre will create a series of mixed-media painted portraits of folks of color at the community forefront of New Orleans’ climate change adaptation actions. The six portraits will be symbolic of modern academic research paper paragraphs (introduction, hypothesis, methods,… -
Andrina Turenne Performing Artist, 2022, Canada Andrina Turenne will use her residency to explore Indigenous and local perspectives on water, language and land through music, past and present, as it relates to climate and landscape. In doing research, exploring geographic and cultural throughlines, and speaking with… -
Virginia Hanusik Visual Artist, 2022, Louisiana While in residence, Virginia Hanusik will work on The Place We Keep, a series exploring the inequality of disaster relief and preservation in communities along the Gulf Coast experiencing the impacts of climate change through a compilation of photographs, oral… -
Desiree S. Evans Writer, 2021-22, Louisiana As the third Gulf South Writer in the Woods, Desiree S. Evans will be completing work on a dystopian literary fantasy novel set hundreds of years into the future along what remains of the Gulf Coast. The novel tells the… -
Jose Cotto Visual Artist, 2022, Louisiana Jose Cotto was born and raised in Great Brook Valley, a housing project in Worcester, Massachusetts and has called New Orleans home since 2012. The son of a single mother raising four kids, he often found himself being pulled between… -
Gypsi Lewis Multidisciplinary Artist, 2022, Louisiana C. Gypsi Lewis (she/they) is a Black and Brown queer femme born in New Orleans, Louisiana (Bulbancha) of the Lewis, Thomas, Miller, (de)Leon, Ruiz, and Baham families. Their praxis include installation art, small batch herbal skincare goods, full spectrum birth… -
Mwende “FreeQuency” Katwiwa Anti-Disciplinary Artist, 2022, Louisiana Mwende “FreeQuency” Katwiwa is a Kenyan, Immigrant, Shoga|Queer storyteller, speaker & feeler. The 2018 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, a 2017 TEDWomen speaker and ranked 3rd at the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam, FreeQuency is a highly sought… -
Alex Sorapuru Visual Artist, 2022, Louisiana Alex Sorapuru’s early passion for creating was fostered while taking in the diverse architecture and color growing up in New Orleans. He began to explore painting during his years at LSU Architecture. Centered around abstract portraits, his work aims to… -
Donald Lewis Jr. Performing Artist, 2022, Louisiana Donald Lewis Jr. is a graduate of NOCCA and studied theater at the College of Santa Fe, NM and University of New Orleans. He currently teaches Gifted and Talented Theater in New Orleans Public Schools. He has worked with Edward… -
Quiana Lynell Performing Artist, 2022, Louisiana Growing up in small town West Texas, Quiana Lynell grew her appreciation for all types of music and quickly realized music was a way to connect to the world. With a smile that will entrance you and a voice that… -
Kristi L. Anderson, Ph.D. Scholar, 2022, Louisiana Kristi L. Anderson, Ph.D., currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Research for the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, LSU Health Sciences Center, Lafayette LA Campus. In her role, she provides oversight of the accreditation of graduate medical education… -
Karen Grant-Anderson Performing Artist, 2022, Louisiana Karen Grant-Anderson has been singing “Since the womb!” She has also been writing her own lyrics for many years. A New Orleans native, the youngest of six children, Karen was raised by her aunt after her mother died when she… -
Zaria Ivory Performing Artist, 2022, Louisiana Zaria Ivory is a Sophomore Vocal performance major at Dillard University originally from Oakland, California. Music has played a vital role in her life from the moment it started. Like her mother likes to tell it, she was singing before… -
William Shelton Literary Artist, 2022, Louisiana William Shelton joins A Studio in the Woods in the final year of his undergraduate studies at Dillard University. William is an English major, hailing from Nashville, TN, and has a passion for creative writing—specifically playwriting, short stories, and poetry.… -
Nailah Starks Literary Artist, 2022, Louisiana Nailah Starks is a junior English major from Amite, Louisiana. She chose Dillard University for its appreciation and culture of the humanities. Nailah decided to pursue English because she has always had a passion for teaching, reading, and writing. When… -
Abbee Warmboe Theater Artist, 2022, Minnesota Abbee Warmboe is a props designer based in Minneapolis. She has been freelancing throughout the Twin Cities for the past 10 years, working on over 200 productions with 36 different companies. Most recently her work could be seen at Theater… -
Karen E Goulet Visual Artist, 2021, Minnesota Karen E Goulet, White Earth Ojibwe Nation/Métis – Artist, writer, community organizer, educator, daughter, mother, sister Karen E Goulet is an enrolled member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation. She is also from Métis, Saami, and Finnish people. She was… -
Kristina Kay Robinson Literary Artist, 2021, Louisiana Kristina Kay Robinson is a writer, curator, and visual artist born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her ongoing installation and performance art project, Republica: Temple of Color and Sound has been presented in exhibition at “Welcome to the Afrofuture”… -
Sidiki Conde Performing Artist, 2021, New York Sidiki Conde will use his residency to immerse himself in the culture, nature and music of the region and compose a series of songs about the rising crisis of climate change. Within the New Orleans community, he will host a… -
Lisa E. Harris Interdisciplinary Artist, 2021-22, Texas Lisa E. Harris’ residency will support the regional development of an international research project, ONSHORE TRILLING: What to Do When the Earth Sings the Bruise, by affording opportunities for mutual creative exchange between Harris and the Women of Cancer Alley and Rise… -
LaChaun Moore Visual Artist, 2021, South Carolina LaChaun Moore created an agriculturally-based installation titled Heirloom utilizing heirloom plants as a catalyst to talk about the historical context of the natural environment and how that differs from ancestral and familial ties. LaChaun Moore is an interdisciplinary artist who… -
Lydia Y. Nichols Literary Artist, 2020-21, Louisiana Lydia Y. Nichols worked on a speculative dark comedy stage play titled Don’t Look Away, set at the turn of the 22nd century in a post-reparations Gulf South, following a climate event that results in the disappearance of New Orleans.… -
J.M. Nimocks Anti-Disciplinary Artist, 2021, Illinois J.M. Nimocks (SWAMP XADDiii) is the descendant of survivors of the transatlantic slave trade and Choctaw Native Americans who settled in Meridian and Sunflower, Mississippi before migrating to the midwest. They are an anti-disciplinary artist and scholar who is most… -
Wendy Gaudin Literary Artist, 2021, Louisiana Wendy Gaudin is an essayist, a beadworker, a poet, an American historian, and the proud descendant of Louisiana Creoles who migrated to California. Her nonfiction writing delves into the themes of race and belonging, skin color and ancestry, colonialism and… -
Ra Malika Imhotep Literary Artist, 2021, Louisiana Ra Malika Imhotep is a Black feminist writer and performance artist from Atlanta, Georgia deeply invested in Black storytellin’ practices and the ways our bodies make sense of language. As co-convener of an embodied spiritual-political education project called The Church… -
Anya Groner Literary Artist, 2021, Louisiana Anya Groner used her residency to continue work on a novel. Set in Louisiana between 1911-1927, the narrative follows Simone Walsh, an Irish-American teenager living in New Orleans who is diagnosed with leprosy and sent upriver to Carville, Louisiana, to… -
Jarrell Hamilton Performing Artist, 2021, Louisiana Jarrell Hamilton is a Mother, Choreographer, Actress, Singer, Dancer, Educator and Film Director. A graduate of Tulane University Theatre and Dance Department Master of Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Dance Program (Choreography and African-American Studies) and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX,… -
Kina B. Joshua Radical Healer, 2021, Louisiana “Throughout my life, I have been attuned to the vibrant signals our bodies express, and the ways those expressions can guide us to create a fulfilling partnership with ourselves. From a very early age, I learned about the body by… -
MILAGROS Visual Artists, 2021, Louisiana During their residency, MILAGROS will design and build an installation using reclaimed objects found in the Mississippi River presented using the interpretive language of National Parks. Audiences will be guided to view the installation as a local ecosystem made of… -
Yudith Azareth Nieto Multidiscipliary Artist and Organizer, 2021-22, Lousiana Yudith Azareth Nieto is a two spirited (queer) Mexican-American environmental justice organizer, language justice worker, and multidisciplinary artist based in the Gulf South. She is a cofounder of BanchaLenguas Language Justice Collective in Bvlbancha (New Orleans,LA) and part of the… -
Hildevert Promesse Lafeuille Filmmaker, 2021, Louisiana Hildevert Promesse Lafeuille was born in Africa and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He is a young passionate filmmaker with a vision. In his junior year of high school he started taking film seriously and decided to follow it as… -
Aaliyah Arnold Visual Artist, 2021, Louisiana “My name is Aaliyah Arnold, I am a 20 year old photographer and printmaker from Jeanerette, Louisiana. My inspiration for my art has always been the raw and unfiltered world, and life experiences. My love for art started like many… -
Jermaine Robinson Visual Artist, 2021, Louisiana “My name is Jermaine Robinson, I go by the name of the ART HSTLR, I am a 22 year old acrylic painter from New Orleans, LA. Growing up in New Orleans, a city full of creatives, culture, art in all… -
Juwan Saint Charles Filmmaker, 2021, Louisiana Juwan Saint Charles is a filmmaker and student artist participant in Inspiring Health Justice: A Collaborative Art-Science Scholar-in-Residence Program. -
Bill Summers Performing Artist, 2021, Louisiana To say that Bill Summers is a percussionist is like saying a Steinway is a piano: The noun conveys none of the history and quality of the owner of the title. Summers is a musician of the highest order, playing… -
Sabine McCalla Performing Artist, 2021, Louisiana Throughout the past year Sabine McCalla, like many of us, found herself deeply isolated from friends and family. She wrote songs that spoke of that loneliness, grounding herself in her environment and space in time. Using her poetry she’s written… -
Sha’Condria “iCon” Sices-Sibley Multidisciplinary Artist, 2021, Louisiana Sha’Condria (“iCon”) Sices-Sibley is an Alexandria, Louisiana native and longtime New Orleans-based poet and artist of many mediums whose work spans across visual art, theater, music, and film. A multiple-time national poetry slam champion, iCon travels the country performing, including… -
Nikkisha K. Napoleon Literary Artist and Scholar, 2021, Louisiana Nikkisha K. Napoleon is a poet, essayist, and scholar. Affectionately known as Momma Nikki, she is a 2008 graduate of Southern University at New Orleans, where she earned a dual Bachelor of Science in English and History. She is a… -
TINYisPOWERFUL: Victoria Moore, Gwylene Gallimard, and Rayn Rainey Social Practice, 2021, South Carolina TINYisPOWERFUL is a creative place online, a community hub and an interracial, intergenerational collective effort linking artists, cultural workers, youth and tiny business partners to support and promote TINY BUSINESS as a vital part of neighborhood and commerce. Victoria Rae Boynton Moore is… -
Pippin Frisbie-Calder Visual Artist, 2015 and 2020, Louisiana During her 2016 Filnt and Steel Residency with Tim McLean, Pippin Frisbie-Calder rendered microscopic phytoplankton in large-scale prints and real-time projections to demonstrate their importance and build awareness of wetland microorganisms in our ecology. Spending hours canoeing and collecting phytoplankton… -
Jeffery Darensbourg Literary Artist, 2020, Louisiana Jeffery Darensbourg is interested in the knowledge of flora, fauna, and people his Atakapa-Ishak ancestors carried with them and wishes to connect this sort of Louisiana-specific knowledge to the knowledge urban Natives such as himself have in negotiating Indigeneity, within… -
Nick Slie Performing Artist, 2020, Louisiana While in residence, Nick embarked on “Invisible Rivers,” a series of performances and public walks that seek to re-engage citizens with the wisdom of adaptation and uncertainty inherent in the once wild paths of the Mississippi River. “Invisible Rivers” unites… -
Tiona Nekkia McClodden Visual Artist, 2020, Pennsylvania Tiona Nekkia McClodden [she/her] is a visual artist, filmmaker, and curator whose work often employs a citational practice exploring and critiquing issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and social commentary. Her interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video,… -
Benjamin Aleshire Literary Artist, 2020, Louisiana Benjamin Aleshire is a poet who for many years has made a living by composing poems for strangers on a manual typewriter – on Royal Street in the French Quarter, as well as in Paris, Havana, Madrid, New York, London,… -
Saheli Khastagir Literary Artist, 2020, Louisiana Saheli Khastagir is a painter, writer & development professional from India, living in New Orleans. One third of her days are spent providing professional service in monitoring and evaluation, technical writing and research for programs spanning gender, education, health, labor,… -
Su Prevost Literary Artist, 2020, Louisiana Su Prevost is a climate activist, teacher, writer, and South Louisiana water baby whose creative writing process incorporates nature’s turmoil, subtleties, and all the beauty of home into narratives that highlight her formative challenges for survival. She utilizes regional and… -
Leon August Waters Literary Artist, 2020, Louisiana Leon August Waters is a New Orleans native, historian, publisher and social activist. Waters attended Xavier University for Business Administration and graduated from St. Augustine High School. He serves as the Board Chairperson of the Louisiana Museum of African American History… -
David L. Harris Performing Artist, 2020, Louisiana David L. Harris is lyricist, vocalist, trombonist, composer and arranger. Harris embodies the edge of modern jazz and the sultriness of blues taking his audiences on an emotionally engaging journey of love and liberation, wrapped in a sound that embraces… -
Christine “Cfreedom” Brown Visual Artist, 2020, Louisiana Christine Brown (aka Cfreedom) is a New Orleans artist, activist, and entrepreneur. Her instagram bio reads “a Nola-based, international, universal, queen-yeyo, photographer-filmmaker kickin in the door for young black women in film and photography to come through 2”. She is… -
Greer Mendy Literary and Performing Artist, 2020, Louisiana Greer Mendy founded and directs Tekrema Center for Art and Culture, a cultural arts organization dedicated to the maintenance, development and perseverance of African and African Diaspora art and culture. She is an independent scholar of African, Caribbean, and Louisiana… -
Ash Arder Transdisciplinary Artist, 2019, Michigan Ash Arder is a transdisciplinary artist who creates idea and object-based systems for interpreting and re-imagining interspecies relations (i.e. relations between humans and plants). This highly flexible, research-based approach examines these relationships primarily through pop culture and historic lenses. Arder’s… -
Geraldine Laurendeau Multidisciplinary Artist, 2019, Canada Geraldine Laurendeau is a multidisciplinary artist from Montreal (Canada). She has a background in Fine Arts, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Studies. She’s also a trained ethnologist and collaborates with First Nations, museums and research institutions as an independent curator, designer… -
Hannah Pepper-Cunningham Performing Artist, 2019, Louisiana Hannah Pepper-Cunningham has been creating performance work in New Orleans since 2009. A member of Mondo Bizarro from 2009-2018, Hannah served as co-artistic director of training programs and collaboratively developed and performed in “Cry You One” and “The Way at Midnight.”… -
Ladee Hubbard Writer, 2019-20, Louisiana Ladee Hubbard was the second Gulf South Writer in the Woods, in residence for a total of six weeks spread out over 2019 and 2020. During the residency, Hubbard revised her novel, The Rib King. Spanning a ten-year period between… -
kai barrow Visual and Performing Artist, Louisiana, 2019-20 While in residence, kai barrow continued work on “A CHORUS OF OUTLAWS,” a multimedia assemblage of ‘singing’ sculptures. The work features the recorded voices, ecologies, and sounds of historic and contemporary refugees, fugitives, abolitionists, and nomads—people who demonstrate radical imagination… -
Margaret Pearce Cartographer, 2019, Maine Margaret Pearce (Citizen Band Potawatomi), continued research for “Mississippi Dialogues,” a three-year project to map public opinion about flooding into an Indigenized map of the Mississippi River. She used her residency to be in proximity to Indigenous communities of the… -
ChE and kei slaughter Performing Artists, 2019-20, Louisiana ChE and kei slaughter worked on “The People Can Fly,” a land-responsive performance ritual rooted in Queer Afro-Indigenous cultural strategies to address issues of climate gentrification, environmental racism, and land displacement for communities most impacted by climate adaptations. ChE is… -
Regina Agu Visual Artist, 2019, Texas In residence through a collaboration with New Orleans Museum of Art, Regina Agu created Passage, an installation for NOMA’s Great Hall, displayed in conjunction with their exhibition Inventing Acadia: Painting and Place in Louisiana. Agu worked closely with Studio botanist David… -
Aurora Levins Morales Writer and Historian, 2005 (Pre-Katrina), 2018, California Aurora Levins Morales is an internationally known Puerto Rican Jewish feminist poet and essayist whose work explores issues of identity, social justice, and the interwoven social and natural histories of our landscapes and our bodies. Raised in a house full… -
Monique Michelle Verdin Visual Artist, 2007, 2017, 2018 and 2019, Louisiana Monique Michelle Verdin uses imagery to expose the reality of a Louisiana lost and the Louisiana left behind. More folk artist than photographer, more storyteller than visual artist, Verdin has captured, collected and exposed an intimate perspective into the survival… -
John Kleinschmidt Visual Artist, 2018, Louisiana John Kleinschmidt used drawing and installations to explore prehistoric and present-day environmental change and project what plants and animals might thrive in the distant future environment of New Orleans. John, in collaboration with evolutionary biologists, geologists, and experts in ecological… -
Tia-Simone Gardner Multidisciplinary Artist, 2018, Minnesota Tia-Simone Gardner began a new project, There’s Something in the Water, Yemaya and Oshun, amassing footage and archival research to create a seven-channel video installation that documents seven sites along the Mississippi River, chosen because of their relationship to the… -
Dasha Chapman, Jean-Sebastien Duvilaire, Ann Mazzocca & Phil Rodriguez Performing Artists, 2018, Massachusetts, Virginia and Haiti The Tè Glise Collective– comprised of Dasha Chapman, Jean-Sebastien Duvilaire, Ann Mazzocca and Phil Rodriguez– is a group of dance artists, scholar-practitioners and musicians who explore collaborative site-specific projects in relation to place-making, history, and the role of spirit in… -
Jonathan Mayers Visual and Literary Artist, 2018, Louisiana Jonathan “rat de bois farouche” Mayers is a Louisiana Creole artist and writer from Baton Rouge, LA. His paintings depict metaphorical beasts amid meticulously rendered landscapes. The mysterious creatures – somewhat wicked, somewhat charming – were born of the artist’s… -
Manon Bellet Visual and Olfactory Artist, 2018, Louisiana Manon Bellet [b. 1979] is a French artist who lives and works in New Orleans since 2016. Bellet holds a BA/MFA from the University of the Arts, ECAV Switzerland. She has been awarded, Monroe Fellowship from The New Orleans Center… -
Julio Blancas Visual Artist, 2018, Canary Islands Julio Blancas was born in 1967 in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. He studied art at Las Escuelas de Artes Plásticas in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria and sculpture in Santa Cruz, Tenerife. He works mainly with pencil or graphite on paper,… -
Katie Mathews Filmmaker, 2018, Louisiana With New Orleans Video Access Center, Katie Mathews has helped produce Post Coastal, a series of short documentary films addressing coastal communities and water issues. She used her time in residence to develop programming around screenings for coastal communities grappling… -
Rachel Wallis Visual Artist, 2017, Illinois Blakeslee Gilpin assisted Rachel Wallis with research and mapping to inform a community-quilting project exploring the links between textiles and the historic and current global slave economy. Rachel worked with high school students from New Orleans Center for Creative Arts… -
Esther Solondz Visual Artist, 2017, Rhode Island Esther Solondz designed and installed The Bee Palace, a beautiful sculpture that also functions as a nesting site for wild solitary bee pollinators at Audubon Zoo. Faculty partner and Director of the New Orleans Mosquito Board Claudia Riegel provided information… -
Sarah Dahnke Performing Artist, 2017, New York Sarah Dahnke’s Dances for Solidarity is an ongoing, community-based performance choreographed by incarcerated people in solitary confinement, borrowing from the personal narratives of 50 people in prison in Texas and Louisiana. The New Orleans iteration of the project was performed… -
Julia Kumari Drapkin & Lindsey Wagner New Media Artists, 2017, Louisiana and Massachusetts Julia Kumari Drapkin and Lindsey Wagner are founding members of ISeeChange, a global online platform and app where citizens can observe and discuss what they notice changing in the environment and the ways those changes impact their lives. Julia and… -
Aubrey Edwards & Gretchen Faust Visual Artists, 2017, Louisiana Aubrey Edwards and Gretchen Faust applied as a collaborative team to work on a project comprised of a short observational film exploring an array of healing practices and a contextualizing, accompanying publication featuring an ensemble of over fifty regional, female-identified… -
Edward Ball Writer, 2017-18, Connecticut As the inaugural Gulf South Writer in the Woods resident, Edward Ball was hosted in the woods in partnership with the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South. During his residency, Ball worked on a new manuscript, gave lectures, and… -
Fallen Fruit Social Practice, 2017-18, California Internationally acclaimed artist collaborative Fallen Fruit (David Burns and Austin Young) was hosted through partnerships with Pelican Bomb and Newcomb Art Museum to create Fallen Fruit of New Orleans. Throughout 2017 and into early 2018, Fallen Fruit made a series… -
Christy George Writer, 2016, Oregon During her residency, environmental journalist Christy George continued work on her creative non-fiction book Vanishing Hometowns, and with faculty partner Laura Murphy hosted conversations across generations and geography – bringing together people along the bayous endangered by rising seas with… -
Jan Mun Media Artist, 2016, New York Jan Mun collaborated with Howard Mielke and his Lead Lab to revision and activate best practices for lead testing and soil remediation through a site-specific installation. Neighborhood leaders helped identify a community garden in the Treme with a high lead… -
E. Oscar Maynard Visual Artist, 2016, California With input from faculty collaborator and religious studies expert Randy Sparks, E. Oscar Maynard created an ongoing community-based art project that uses the idea of Tent Revivals to explore the ways we stray from our own power, and the ways… -
Jebney Lewis Visual and Performing Artist, 2016, Louisiana Jebney Lewis worked with faculty collaborator Rick Snow, New Orleans youth, and Tulane students to build a map of the city made from sonified steel plates and repurposed brass instruments. The pair also partnered with local writer Christopher Staudinger to… -
Donna Cooper Hurt Visual Artist, 2016, South Carolina Donna Cooper Hurt created site-specific installations that address place and the human relationship to the environment. In a day-long workshop with youth from the Jefferson Parish Department of Juvenile Services, Donna and Donata Henry shared their work and processes and… -
Jacqueline Ehle Inglefield Visual Artist, 2016, Louisiana Jacqueline Ehle Inglefield in collaboration with Mark Gstohl, built a shrine to the bottomland hardwood forest to reignite a reverence for nature. Referencing religious scriptures and past spiritual practices, the shrine encourages contemplation of the global impact of habitual consumption… -
Byron Asher Composer, 2016, Louisiana Byron Asher is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser based in New Orleans. Raised in Maryland, he has performed across Europe and the US. Festivals include the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and French Quarter Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival,… -
Jeff Whetstone Visual Artist, 2016-17, New Jersey Jeff Whetstone was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and has been photographing and writing about the relationship between humans and their environment since he received a Zoology degree from Duke University in 1990. Jeff came to the woods for a collaborative… -
Maria Möller Visual Artist, 2015, Pennsylvania Maria Möller collaborated with geographer Richard Campanella, and members of New Orleans Chinese American community to symbolically excavate the city’s forgotten and demolished Chinatown. Oral histories, photography and map-making combined to create temporary installations on sites in the Central Business… -
Jessica Levine Installation Artist, 2015, West Virginia Faculty Partner: Jordan Karubian, Professor, and Renata Ribeiro, Professor of the Practice, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University Jessica Levine, in collaboration with Renata Ribeiro and Jordan Karubian, created an interactive, mixed media visual art installation to bring… -
Anna Fitzgerald Performing Artist, 2015, Maryland In collaboration with epidemiologist Felicia Rabito and her lab at the Tulane School of Public Health, Anna Fitzgerald created a puppet-based performance for and with children with asthma. Together, they created characters with objects like inhalers to tell a story… -
Shay Nichols Composer, 2015, California Composer Shay Nichols and faculty partner Tom Sherry created nature-based compositions with local musicians and led public listening excursions to discover the beauty and power found in the “chorus” of the Southern Louisiana natural environment. Inspired by the residency, Shay… -
Matt Wright Visual Artist, 2015, New York Sign painter Matt Wright photographed the city’s historically significant signage and with faculty partner Vicki Mayer they collected stories about existing signs from neighbors and sign painters to be included in Vicki’s Media NOLA project, an online portal for cultural… -
Sebastian Muellauer Creative Design, 2014, Germany Muellauer used his residency to make advances on his Open Research Buoy (ORB), an open-sourced, community-driven project that aims to develop technology which will help monitor and research endangered water ecosystems. He met with scientists and environmental specialists to assess… -
Monica Haller Media Artist, 2014, Minnesota Haller created a “field station” in a gutted home in Plaquemines Parish, enlisting the help of local geologists and sedimentologists, in order to learn more about the transitory eroding spaces that face Southern Louisiana’s coast. She gathered together experiments, photos,… -
Megan Singleton Visual Artist, 2014, Missouri Singleton created an installation of sculpture and pulp paintings investigating native and invasive flora that clutch Louisiana between the fingers of their roots. The works transformed natural materials into art using hand paper making techniques and clay and referencing maps… -
Dawn DeDeaux Visual Artist, 2014-15, Louisiana A Studio In The Woods collaborated with artist Dawn DeDeaux to present Selections from the MotherShip Series as a P3+ Host Site at two locations from October 25, 2014 – January 25, 2015 DeDeaux is a professional New Orleans-based artist… -
Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien Installation Artists, 2013, California McCormick and O’Brien worked with local grassroots environmentalists to invent a reusable cage to protect cypress seedlings from invasive rodents, placing dozens of these cages along the coast as a remedial art installation. Rigorous in their research, the artist team… -
Isabelle Hayeur Visual Artist, 2013, Canada Hayeur used special equipment to shoot over/underwater photography in polluted waterways, creating evocative images from the unusual perspective of the waterline that were then exhibited on four billboards on major thoroughfares across New Orleans. Born in Montreal, Isabelle Hayeur is… -
Laurel True Visual Artist, 2013, Louisiana True created a series of sculptural mosaic forms that float on the surface of water, interacting with the environment through light, movement and reflection. The sculptures were made from elements collected from both the urban and the rural landscape, including… -
Emily Corazon Nelson Visual Artist, 2013, Louisiana Nelson used her residency to collect and commission images of water landscapes in Southern Louisiana rendered in oil-based media. She then subjected the images to Corexit, the disperant used in the Gulf during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup. Emily… -
Rebecca Snedeker Writer and Filmmaker, 2011-12, Louisiana Snedeker’s residency was crucial in the formation of Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, a book of 22 imaginative maps and essays she co-authored with Rebecca Solnit. She spent her time recruiting writers for the book, writing an essay on… -
Katie Holten Visual Artist, 2012, Ireland Holten researched the historical, current, and projected ecosystem of New Orleans and the Mississippi river delta, through site visits and engagement with local communities and expressed these scientific and ecological investigations through sculptures and works on paper. This work formed… -
Nina Nichols Performing Artist, 2012, Louisiana Nichols produced costumes, puppets, and props for an operetta titled The Vanities of the Poor, set on the banks of the Mississippi River. The show debuted during A Studio in the Woods’ FORESTival. She received a grant to take the… -
Sarah Quintana Composer, 2012, Louisiana Quintana used water as an instrument in composing and recording a dozen new songs. She transformed her studio into a mixed media sound installation with a number of professional and home made instruments for a collaborative performance. She invited the… -
Andy Behrle Sculptor, 2012, Hawaii Behrle explored issues of erosion and accretion with a living installation sited on the grounds of Longue Vue House and Gardens. The piece took the form of a mausoleum covered with mud and the seeds of native plants which slowly… -
Bernard Williams Sculptor, 2011, Illinois Williams built a sculpture, Ghost Trails, based on a map he found from the 1940’s tracing the meanderings of the Mississippi River. In an ambitious move, he decided that the piece needed to be launched in the waters that inspired… -
Suzanne Bennett Visual Artist, 2011, New York Bennett completed four large-scale paintings contrasting the dichotomy of the city’s baroque sensibilities with its location on the edge of an untamed swamp. Suzanne Bennett received her B.F.A. from U.C. Santa Cruz and her M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. She has… -
Benjamin Morris Writer, 2011, Louisiana and Mississippi Morris took every opportunity to go out in the woods absorbing great botanical detail and spent his studio time creating allegories based on the changing forest ecology for a new book of poetry titled Ecotone, which was published by Antenna/Press… -
Roy Staab Installation Artist, 2011, Wisconsin Staab used driftwood, willow branches, bamboo, bloodweed, and other natural materials found onsite or nearby – even footprints – to construct ephemeral artworks in our pond and on the banks of the Mississippi River. Roy’s residency culminated with a piece… -
Alex Harris Photographer, 2011, North Carolina Alex Harris (b. 1949) was raised in the South and lives in Durham, NC with his wife, Margaret Sartor, and their two children. Harris has photographed extensively in the American South, New Mexico, Alaska, and Cuba. His work is represented… -
Karen Rich Beall Sculptor, 2010, Pennsylvania Beall examined lichens and ferns from the woods under a microscope and rendered them larger than life using hand-knitting, paper mache, and other mixed media. She also led a nature journaling workshop for youth from The Porch 7th Ward Cultural… -
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts Writer, 2010, Texas Rhodes-Pitts used local historical archives to write a cycle of prose poems based on a 1811 slave revolt that she shared in a reading at the New Orleans African American Museum. She experimented with making paper from traditional “cash crops”… -
William Cordova Visual Artist, 2010, Peru Cordova used 16MM film to document and preserve traces of displaced histories of New Orleans. His project aimed to create monuments of secular sacred spaces within Louisiana history and folklore. William Cordova was born and raised in Lima, Peru. He… -
Eric Dallimore Installation Artist, 2010, Colorado Dallimore created a living public sculpture titled The Louisiana Pipeline. The installation took the form of a pipeline composed entirely of organic matter and seeds, visually representing man’s destructive force of oil exploration on the Gulf Coast. A New Orleans… -
Rafael Santos Visual Artist, 2009, Argentina Santos’ primary concerns are the social-ecological communities that have developed over time around freshwater rivers and coastal zones, and the close collaboration with local people, other artists, scientists and environmental groups working in the same realm nationally and internationally. While… -
David Sullivan Media Artist, 2009, Louisiana Sullivan rendered and debuted Fugitive Emissions, an abstract animation inspired by the effects of air and water pollution prevalent in our chemical corridor. The works were projected on screens installed in the lantern-lit woods, using the ambient sounds of the… -
Tory Tepp Installation Artist, 2009, California Fourteen volunteers joined Tepp in “artscaping” a 10-foot flatbed trailer into the form of a boat. The Spirit Ferry Project built community and investment in sustainable urban agriculture; the boat’s cargo included soil, seeds, and the tools needed to plant… -
Mollie Day Poet and Environmental Journalist, 2008, Louisiana Mollie Day is a New Orleans-based poet. She holds a masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans and is a fellow of the Institute for Environmental Communications, Loyola University, New Orleans. Through her work, Mollie illustrates… -
Christy Speakman Multimedia Visual Artist, 2007, Louisiana Christy Speakman received a BFA in Fine Art from the University of New Orleans in 2002 and an MFA in Photography from Ohio University’s School of Art in 2005. She has participated in artist residencies at Sandarbh US, The Santa… -
Elizabeth Underwood Multimedia Visual Artist, 2007, Louisiana Elizabeth Underwood is a visual artist, activist, writer and long-term resident of New Orleans. In pursuit of “the art of relationships” she focuses on site-specific installation and performance as well as formal work in photography, collage, and drawing. Her poetry,… -
Dr. Michael White Composer, 2003-2004 and 2007, Louisiana Dr. Michael White, a renowned clarinetist, composer and jazz historian, has been a pioneer in perpetuating the origins of traditional New Orleans jazz. Among the most respected musicians in the Crescent City, White is one of only a few clarinetists… -
Damien Aquiles Painter, Rescheduled from 2005 to 2007 due to Hurricane Katrina, Cuba Damian Aquiles is a graduate of the graphic design institute and the Art Academy of San Alejandro in Havana. His work has been exhibited in Cuba, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Argentina, Italy, South Africa, Nicaragua, and the United States and is… -
Kathy Randels & Sean Larocca Artspot Productions, Performing Artists, 2006, Louisiana Kathy Randels, a native New Orleanian, is a theatre artist/educator and the founding artistic director of ArtSpot Productions. She studied, lived and worked in Chicago from 1987-1994, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Performance Studies in 1991 from Northwestern University.… -
Jason Chaffin Installation Artist, Musician, 2006, Louisiana Jason Chaffin grew up across 36 states and 4 countries. He received his BFA in photography from Kansas City Art Institute and a MFA from the University of New Orleans. His work is based upon his diversity of personal experience… -
Jenny Kahn Painter, 2006, Louisiana Jenny Kahn was born and raised in New Orleans. She studied painting at the Gerritt Reitveld Academie in Amsterdam and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She has exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans and elsewhere. Kahn… -
Monique Moss Choreographer, Dancer, 2006, Louisiana A native of New Orleans, Monique Moss is a Choreographer, Independent Curator, History Tour Guide, and Artistic Director of Third Eye Theatre Interdisciplinary and Improvisational Performance Company. She received a BA in French, MA in Latin American Studies, MFA in Interdisciplinary Dance Performance from Tulane… -
Valentine Pierce Poet, Photographer, Graphic Designer, 2006, Louisiana Valentine Pierce is a poet, writer, photographer and graphic designer who is very active in the New Orleans art scene. She has been writing for more than 30 years and her creative and journalistic work has been published throughout the… -
Peter Coles Writer and Photographer, 2006, England Peter Coles is a writer and photographer based in London. For 20 years he lived and worked in Paris, contributing articles and photographs to a number of international magazines. He is currently Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Urban and… -
Sheryl St. Germain Writer, 2005 (Pre-Katrina), Iowa Sheryl St. Germain directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Chatham University. She has published several poetry books and a memoir, Swamp Songs, about growing up in New Orleans. Winner of many awards, including two NEA grants and the… -
Reggie Young Writer, 2005 (Pre-Katrina), Louisiana Reggie Scott Young is a scholar, fiction/nonfiction writer, and poet who lives in Lafayette, La. He is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop. Samples of his… -
Stephen Dankner Composer, 2004, Louisiana Stephen Dankner received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition from the Juilliard School in 1971. A list of works since 1990 includes nine symphonies, thirteen string quartets, background environmental music for the New Orleans Aquarium of the Americas,… -
Krista Franklin Poet, 2004, Illinois Krista Franklin is a poet and visual artist from Dayton, Ohio, who lives and works in Chicago. Her poetry and mixed media collages have been published in lifestyle and literary journals such as Coon Bidness, Copper Nickel, Clam and Callaloo,… -
Deedra Ludwig Painter, 2004, Washington Born in Chicago, Deedra has been honored by Arts Alliance in Atlanta, GA; SouthEast Arts Award in Tunbridge Wells, UK; Sitka Center for the Arts Fellowship Residency in Otis, Oregon; and the National Parks Service. She has also been a… -
Alexis Wreden Sculptor, Landscape Architect, 2004, Louisiana Alexis Wreden is an artist and is trained as landscape architect. She is involved in making public art, gardens and parks in Louisiana. She lives and collaborates with her architect husband, Robert Fakelmann, two dogs, three cats and many wild… -
Pat Warner Sculptor, 2004, California Pat Warner was born and raised in an agricultural area of southeastern Pennsylvania, and traveled extensively throughout the world observing the natural environment and indigenous cultures. Those experiences influence her indoor and outdoor sculptural environments and drawings that are involved… -
Jane Marshall Painter and printmaker, 2003, Alabama Jane Marshall is an artist of great versatility and depth. She is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, fabric and book artist who delves deeply into her subject matter including nature and the great themes and figures of history, mythology and literature.… -
Wendy Taylor Carlisle Poet, 2003, Texas Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives between Texarkana, Texas, and Eureka Springs, Ark. She is the author of Discount Fireworks (2008) and Reading Berryman to the Dog (2000). Among the anthologies that include her work are The Poets Grimm (2003), Is This… -
Daniel Winkert Architect, Louisiana, 2003 Daniel Winkert (Wink) is an architect and planner who came to New Orleans at the age of 18 (having spent his previous life in Maryland and Tennessee). Graduating from Tulane University School of Architecture, Wink then began a career of… -
Yuki Fukushima Potter, 2002, Japan Yuki Fukushima was born in Matsue, Japan, a small city on the Sea of Japan. Yuki’s father, Kazuo Fukushima, was a traditional potter whose noborigama, or climbing kiln, was on a mountainside near Matsue. When her father fell seriously ill,… -
Francine Prevost Poet, 2002, France Francine is a French poet and visual artist living in Canada. Francine spent three weeks exploring the levee, batture, and riverside collecting rocks and driftwood. She created a show of her poetry on large paper laid on a city sidewalk… -
M. Jude Artisan, 2001, India In February and March of 2000, Lucianne Carmichael visited Penukonda, India, at the invitation of the Young India Project, a non-profit organization founded by Sonja and Narinda Bedi and doing work to improve the lives of rural farmworkers and crafts-people…