Social Practice Artist Residency (Keene) has selected an artist for Fall 2023
Monadnock Family Services (MFS) has purchased and is in the process of renovating the former Antioch New England Campus in Keene, NH. The building will be a special place in the mental healthcare field because it offers the possibility of a welcoming atmosphere that projects a healing message. It will communicate respect and hopefulness because our clients truly matter.
The proposed residency will take place from September through December 2023. The artist, along with MFS’s art therapist, will undertake a process with a group of young MFS clients to develop a working relationship and to undertake projects and processes that will both involve their understanding of the site and to make artwork that tells a story about that understanding. The work will be installed in the Children’s Program waiting room, which is a light-filed atrium. The artwork will express hope and health and should help to create a warm, caring, and safe atmosphere for young clients.
This proposed residency has received a $5,100 Arts in Health Project Grant from the NH State Council on the Arts, and additional foundation and private funding is being pursued to fund a $16,000 Budget that will fund the artist stipend, materials, and will also seed the MFS Art Therapy Program.
Fall 2023 Residency
2023 Artist in Residence: Katie Bachler
Katie Bachler is an artist and educator living in Brattleboro, Vermont. She deeply believes that the role of art is to connect us to each other and the world around us, through sharing our gifts. Her work is always collaborative with the public, and takes multiple forms, including maps, gardens, dinners, audio recordings, mobile museums, and braided rag rugs. She has done projects with the Walker Art Center, Mural Arts in Philadelphia, High Desert Test Sites in Joshua Tree, CA, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Slanguage Studio and IDEPSCA Worker’s Center in Los Angeles, Mildred’s Lane, Transition Town Putney, and others. She has a Master’s degree in Curatorial Studies in the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California, and is currently a teaching artist at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, and the mother of a 4 year-old.
SPAR(K)
The Social Practice Artist Residency (Keene), SPAR(K), is designed to bring accomplished social practice artists to Keene to work with and within the community to create experiences for engaged participation, reflection and the making of art.
The pilot residency successfully occurred for 4 weeks in October 2022. Roz Crews was the artist: http://rozcrews.info/#/rozinkeene/o/ The project was titled: When no one is there to witness how it feels inside.SPAR(K) worked closely with Nova Arts and Arts Alive! https://www.novaarts.org/residency
The presence in Keene of the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies (at Keene State College) and the Jonathan Daniels Center (Jonathan Daniels was a civil rights martyr from Keene) will serve as referents for efforts to undertake the social action possibilities of art as a way of reflecting on the experience and history of others and how that might be brought into our community.
SPAR(K) Director, Craig Stockwell.
Craig Stockwell is an artist and educator: He teaches in the MFA programs of Mass Art and Lesley University as Advisor, Guest Critic, Mentor and Visiting Professor. He currently is Lead Faculty for the low-residency MFA program at MassArt. From 2013-20 he directed the Visual Arts MFA at the NH Institute of Art.
https://www.craigstockwell.com/
Please contact (stockwell.craig@gmail.com , 603-762-0667) with questions.