SPAR(K) at MFS 2023
Social Practice Artist Residency (Keene)
+ Monadnock Family Services
Monadnock Family Services (MFS) 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 2023 SPAR(K) 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 year the residency has received a $5,100 Arts in Health Project Grant from the NH State Council on the Arts, and additional foundation and private gifts fill out $16,000 Budget that will fund the artist stipend, materials, and will also seed the MFS Art Therapy Program.
Social Practice Artist Residency (Keene) has selected an artist for the 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.
About the Residency
The Keene artists’ residency is designed to bring accomplished social practice artists to Keene to work with and within the community to create opportunities for engaged participation, reflection and the making of art.
The project will be open, inclusive and will have as its’ primary goal: engaging the community in a shared process that engages social action and is followed by reflection. There is no specific requirement that the project result in art objects.
Resident artists will be in Keene for 1-6 months to take time to come to know the community, develop a project and instigate that project. The residency will work out of an accessible location and housing will be provided for Residents.
The Residency program will also include, yearly, two short events with invited visiting artists for special projects. The residency program will develop annual events to highlight the efforts of the center and offer the community enthusiastic participatory events. This years residency will take place over four months, September - December 2023.
Keene, NH is a small rural city that is impacted socially by the presence in Keene of the Cohen Center for Holocaust Studies and Genocide Studies at Keene State College and the Jonathan Daniels Center for Social Responsibility. Jonathan Daniels was a civil-rights martyr born and raised in Keene. These organizations 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. Social practice art is a form of art that has emerged out of the desire to activate art in community settings.
A wide range of projects and involvement are possible, perhaps the defining aspect of social practice art is the emphasis on engaging the community in projects that stimulate reflection. The intention is that Keene will benefit from the presence of a nationally recognized artist with deep experience in this field who will develop and implement projects that increase community awareness and provide a lively engagement that will attract and keep young adults in this area.
The pilot residency successfully occurred for 4 weeks in October 2022. Roz Crews was the resident artist and the project was titled “When No One is here to Witness how it eels Inside” SPAR(K) worked closely with Nova Arts and Arts Alive! https://www.novaarts.org/residency
Getting Involved
To support or inquire about the Keene Social Practice Artists Residency please get in touch with SPAR(K) Founder and Director, Craig Stockwell at stockwell.craig@gmail.com or 603-762-0667.
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/
Radically Rural Panel discussion, September 29, 2021. Keene, NH. Hosted by Craig Stockwell.
Panelists Molly Johnston (Springboard for the Arts, Fergus Falls, Minnesota) and Tia Kramer (Social Practice artist, Walla-Walla, Washington). Panel: Artist Residencies: Embedding an artist in a rural community.