MISSION
SWARM artist residency nourishes midwest-based artists of all stages and practices through radical and reciprocal community, anchored by an annual retreat to rest, restore, reimagine, and recommit to their creative practice.
VALUES
SWARM lives out its core values of flexibility, generosity, humility, curiosity, and care by providing artists a radically generative place to create art and community. Swarm is a buzzing hive that nourishes body, mind, and spirit while also offering collective learning spaces around race, power, privilege, and oppression. The community we create is one we wish to see represented in the world and beyond.
We commit to living out our five core values of flexibility, generosity, humility, curiosity, and care.
We commit to providing artists a radically generative place to create art and community while prioritizing space for under-resourced artists.
We commit to feeding one another’s bodies and minds through shared meals, shared dialogue, and shared inquiry.
We commit to offering infrastructure and daily practices for collective learning around race, power, privilege, and oppression.
We commit to interrupting and destabilizing oppression in our own community, and in ourselves, as rehearsal for the revolution we wish to see outside SWARM.
Who is Swarm?
Just as healthy gardens thrive from the planting of a variety of seeds, Swarm’s success depends on the richness, depth, and diversity of its community. Artists of color, queer, gender-expansive and other artists working in non-dominant spaces are strongly encouraged to apply. Artists of all artistic disciplines are welcome.
