Thematic Residency
Headlands’ Thematic Residencies focus on a range of urgent social, environmental, and cultural issues. The program is rooted in the belief that artists are immensely creative problem solvers tackling some of the most pressing issues of our time, and that their ideas and processes are essential to understanding those urgent social questions and issues.
Composed of participants from diverse fields, practices, and research foci, Thematic Residencies dive deep into specific topics, giving participants an opportunity to collaborate across differing methods of knowledge production. During each Thematic Residency, approximately 15 to 20 artists, scientists, writers, policy makers, and other experts are invited to Headlands’ historic campus, a setting internationally-renowned for encouraging risk taking and innovation. Participants receive airfare and local transportation, as well as stipends, housing, and meals throughout their time at Headlands.
Participants enjoy considerable autonomy to set the residency’s agenda as it unfolds and evolves, though each convening typically includes a robust schedule of presentations and keynotes, an assortment of collaborative activities, and an abundance of generative conversations—both formal and informal.
Through the program, Headlands seeks to connect artists’ processes to a variety of domains to reveal how creative approaches can be used to produce a vibrant and sustainable future. Along the way, these residencies facilitate meaningful cross-disciplinary connections, in turn seeding fresh projects and collaborations, fostering new lines of discourse, and broadening the range of possibilities for the function of art in our society.