The L.A. Summer Residency offers artists and designers the opportunity to work side-by-side in an immersive environment within the vibrant art and design community of Los Angeles. Through access to Otis College's advanced production studios, facilities, and deep engagement with the Los Angeles contemporary arts community, participants can produce unique work and investigate new ideas. Artists and designers will be hosted at our housing and dining facilities, minutes from LAX and the Pacific Ocean.
If you would like to nominate someone within your community for this program, please complete a Summer Programs Nomination Form and our office will reach out to them with your nomination.
Dates and Fees
This year there will be two sessions of the L.A. Summer Residency. Session A will take place May 24 - June 12. Session B will take place June 14 - July 3. Priority applications are due by February 3, 2020 to be considered for a fellowship. The Summer Programs Office will review applications and send out acceptance notifications on a rolling basis, however fellowship notifications will not be sent out until after the February 3 deadline. Residents who apply by the February 3, 2020 deadline will be considered for fellowships if the fellowship portion of the application is complete, priority preference of residency session, as well as early acceptance to the program. It is highly recommended international applicants apply by the priority deadline to ensure the appropriate arrangements can be made to attend the Residency. After the priority deadline, applications will be accepted on a rolling basis as capacity allows until the start of the program. There is no application fee.
The fee to attend the residency is $3,250 and includes room and board, laboratory access, and meals. There are limited fellowships available for the program. To be considered for a fellowships you must complete your application by the priority deadline of February 3, 2020. A deposit is required to secure your spot in the residency after notifications go out.
Application
Applications are now open! Please click the apply now button below to begin your application. You are able to save your application and return to it at anytime before the application deadline. Sign up to be notified of additional information regarding the LA Summer Residency.
Facilities
As a participant in the LA Summer Residency, you will have access to many of the College's resources including the Labs and Shops, Studio spaces, as well as the dining and housing facilities.
Labs and Shops
Residency participant Juliana Coles working in the Ahmanson Printmaking Lab
Otis College facilities include: Painting Studios, Photography Lab, Lighting Studio & Green Screen, Video Lab, Laboratory Press, Wood, Model and Metal Shops, Printmaking Lab, Sculpture Studio, Ceramics Studio, and more. To learn more about our facilities, please check out Labs and Shops.
Artist Studios
Studio example in the Galef Center for Fine Arts Another semi-private studio in the Galef Center
Each artist or designer, when applicable, will be given their own dedicated, semi-private, 24-hour access studio space. Each studio measures approximately 8 feet by 8 feet. Please refer to the above images to view an example of last year's studio set up. There will be power and additional lighting available based on need. We also ask that you include your plans for your time at the L.A. Summer Residency in your application so an adequate space for your needs can be provided.
Housing
During your time at the L.A. Summer Residency, you will be housed in the new Otis College Residence Hall. The Residence Hall is located on the Otis College campus, minutes from your studio as well as Otis College's labs and shops.
You will be sharing a traditional quad suite with one other artist/designer during your stay. Each quad has two self-contained, unique keycard bedrooms. You will share a common space along with the bathroom with one other Resident.
Included in your stay are linens and towels, however, you may want to bring your own for your comfort. Each floor contains coin-operated laundry facilities and a live-in staff member to answer any questions or concerns that may arise. When checking in, you will be given a unique keycard that gives you access to the Residence Hall along with your meals at the Otis College dining commons.
Programming
The LA Summer Residency has a number of programs part of the Residency including, a Keynote Speaker, Artist Nights, Visiting Artist, and a trip to an LA cultural institution. Below is the outline of the 2020 program. Programs, speakers, and trips will be added to the website as they become confirmed.
Keynote Speaker
At the opening reception of each Residency there will be a keynote speaker to kick off the Residency. Our Keynote speakers will inspire, generate questions, and set the tone for the Residency. Keynote speakers will be added to the website below as they become confirmed.
Keynote Speaker for Session A 2020: Asher Hartman
Asher Hartman is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, theater maker and intuitive practitioner whose work at the junction of visual art and theater centers on the exploration of the self in relation to Western histories and ideologies. His work is particularly concerned with American psychological violence and the transition of the singular self toward the multiple, overlapping, and entwined selves. Recent and upcoming works include “The Dope Elf” at Yale Union, Portland, Oregon and The Lab, San Francisco (2019-2020); “Lost Privilege Company” in “Archive Fever: Lost Words, Buried Voices” as part of USC’s Visions and Voices series; “Sorry, Atlantis, Or Eden’s Achin’ Organ Seeks Revenge” at Machine Project, LA (2017); “Mr. Akita,” Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, (2017) and at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, 2017); “The Silver, the Black, the Wicked Dance,” LACMA (2016). Recent presentations on theater, art, and intuition include “Skeletal Readings: A meditation and conversation with Asher Hartman and Rossen Ventzislavov” at ICA, Los Angeles; “Serving It Cold," Photobook: Reset (2018) C/O Berlin; “Slow Architecture” Crystal Bridges, Arkansas (2018); “Mind Reading” at the Philbrook Museum, Tulsa (2018).
Keynote Speaker for Session B 2020: Larry Johnson
Larry Johnson has influenced an entire generation of artists who use photography not to 'capture' images but to make pictures that reveal the underlying social strata of contemporary culture. His work represents an idiosyncratic amalgam of popular history, text-based narrative, graphic design, and class awareness; even as it maps the physical and mental geographies of Los Angeles, it establishes a broader critique of the ways in which culture defines itself. Larry Johnson has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Raven Row, London (2015); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2009); and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver (1996). His work will be included in Made in LA at the Hammer Museum Summer 2020. His work is in the permanent collections of many institutions, among them the Art Institute of Chicago; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Visiting Artists and Curators
Visiting Artists and Curators are local Los Angeles practicing artists who participate in the program. Each resident is assigned a Visiting Artist or Curator who will complete two studio visits at the residents' on-campus studio to provide critique as well as an artist or curator talk to the entire residency community. For the full biographies please see the Visiting Artists and Curators Biography section below. Below are the list of confirmed Visiting Artists and Curators. More Visiting Artists and Curators will be added as they become confirmed.
Confirmed Visiting Artist and Curators for Session A 2020
Neha Choksi
Liz Craft
Meg Cranston
Nikita Gale
Dan McCleary
Confirmed Visiting Artist and Curators for Session B 2020
Neha Choksi
Liz Craft
Meg Cranston
Nikita Gale
Dan McCleary
Explore Los Angeles
Los Angeles is a wonderful, creative, and diverse city full of cultural institutions that foster the arts. As part of the residency, residents are invited to explore a sponsored trip to a cultural institution in Los Angeles. Many times this trip is in accompanied with a focus on the development of the residents and can include meeting the curator or program director of the space, receiving a guided tour, or other special events. Residents are also encouraged to explore on their own and receive a list of upcoming events such as lectures and gallery openings happening throughout the city during their time at the residency.
Artist Nights
During the residency, participants are invited to share their work with fellow artists in an informal and intimate setting on select evenings. Artist Nights are run by program participants and encourage artists to share their work and talk about their practice and creative goals. Critiques are offered in a supportive environment and artists have the opportunity to inspire each other.
Visiting Artist and Curators Biographies
Our staff are busy planning a number of Visiting Artist for the LA Summer Residency this year. Visiting Artist biographies will be added as they become confirmed and are received for 2020.
Neha Choksi
Neha Choksi works in performance, video, installation, sculpture, and other formats. Her work disrupts logic by setting up poetic and absurd interventions in the lives of everything—from stone to plant, animal to self, friends to institutions. In her process, she embraces a confluence of disciplines, often through collaborative and lived performances that negotiate relationships in unconventional settings. The work allows in strands of her intellectual, cultural and social contexts to revisit the entanglements of time, consciousness, and socialization. Her most recent work-in-progress, Elementary, is a long-term, multi-format project that stems from a lived performance wherein she attends for an entire academic year (2018-2019) a Los Angeles public elementary school as a kindergarten student. Choksi's work has been exhibited or performed at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica (artist lab, 2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (biennial, 2018); Dhaka Art Summit (solo, 2018; group 2016); Manchester Art Gallery (solo, 2017); LAMOA at Occidental College, Los Angeles (solo, 2017); 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016); Hayward Gallery Project Space, London (solo, 2015); Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014); Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, California (2013); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (3-person, 2012); Asia Pacific Triennial, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2012); Shanghai Biennale (2012); Wanås Foundation and Kristianstads Konsthall, Sweden (2012); the Venice Architecture Biennale (2006); among others. A solo exhibition will be presented by the Kleefeld Contemporary (previously known as the University Art Museum), California State University, Long Beach in 2021. Recent honors include the 2019 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, the designation of Cultural Trailblazer by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs for 2020 and 2018, and the India Today Best New Media Artist of the Year Award for 2017. A monograph on a single artwork, Dismantling, was published in 2018. She serves on the editorial board of the Los Angeles-based arts journal, X-TRA. Choksi received her double BA in Greek and in Art from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MA in classics from Columbia University. She lives and works in Los Angeles and Bombay, India.
Liz Craft
Biography and headshot are forthcoming.
Meg Cranston
Meg Cranston is an artist, curator, and writer and editor. Her work has been shown in museums and galleries internationally including the Nuer Aachen Kunstverein, Aachen Germany, The Getty Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, The Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, K21 Museum, Dusseldorf, and the ICA, London. She has taught art theory and criticism as well as studio art for many year and is currently the Chair of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design.
Nikita Gale
Nikita Gale is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, California. She holds a BA in Anthropology with an emphasis in Archaeological Studies from Yale University and holds an MFA in New Genres from UCLA. Gale's practice is often structured by long-term obsessions with specific objects, or classes of objects and the ways these objects gesture towards very specific social and political histories. She uses ubiquitous consumer technologies as frameworks to consider how individuals potentially reproduce their relationships to objects within their relationships to psychic space and political, social, and economic systems.
Dan McCleary
Dan McCleary is a Los Angeles based artist. He has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, LACMA, MOCA, and the Hammer Museum. He is represented in Los Angeles by the Craig Krull Gallery. He is also the founder and director of Art Division, an after-school arts program in the MacArthur Park neighborhood.
Testimonials
Sherrill Roland
Residency participant Sherrill Roland explains The Jumpsuit Project and how his practice expanded during his time at the L.A. Summer Residency at Otis College.
Heather Merckle
Residency participant Heather Merckle describes her process and what Otis College's production studios offered during her residency experience.
Orly Ruaimi
Residency participant Orly Ruaimi on working with artists from across the globe in the creative community of Los Angeles.
Jessica Meuse
Residency participant Jessica Meuse reflects on her time in Los Angeles at the L.A. Summer Residency at Otis College.
Kelly Heaton