How the AAC Residency Program Works

The residency is artist-led and cohort-based. Artists apply together with a community partner, a new collaboration or a deepening of existing relationship, to address social challenges they care about through artistic process and social innovation. The work emphasizes collaborative, experimental, and iterative practice between artists, organizations, and communities, shifting patterns from the inside.

Over eight months, the cohort becomes a learning community, gathering twice a month to explore frameworks for social innovation, share what is emerging in their partnerships, and think alongside one another about what change requires. AAC offers structured learning, dedicated time, financial support, and a community of practice, while trusting artists to shape the work in ways that are true to their practice and responsive to the communities they serve.

The program focuses on developing three main areas:

Expanding Knowledge 

Expanding social innovation and systems change learning is a core objective as we try to understand how artists could use this knowledge to inform their artistic process, how the artistic process is interrelated with social change, and how it can advance systems change. 

Investing & Deepening Relationships

Investing and deepening the relationships between the cohort of artists and partner organizations is a core objective as we try to understand what it means to work collaboratively in an environment of trust, knowledge sharing, and deep connection. 

'Process as Outcome’

Change often occurs in the ‘how’, not the ‘what’. Social innovation practices place as much (if not more) emphasis on the process of innovation rather than the final product. It is in the process of working together that transformation occurs. Focusing on the process with the artists cohort and partner organizations allows us to gain deeper insight and understanding into the role that artists play in social change and transformation