Social Practice Artist Residency · Keene
SPAR(K)
Art as a shared experience. Community as the medium. SPAR(K) is Nova Arts’ annual residency, bringing socially engaged artists to Keene to collaborate with our community and create participatory, place-based art.
What is SPAR(K)?
SPAR(K) is a Social Practice Artist Residency: an approach to art that centers on human connection and shared experience. Instead of creating work in isolation, artists collaborate directly with communities. The result might be a performance, a gathering, a conversation, or something entirely unexpected. The focus is not just the outcome, but the process of making meaning together.
In a time when so many experiences are based in consumption, SPAR(K) invites people to step in, participate, and help shape what happens. Follow along at @spark.residency.
Fall 2026: Craig Pleasants
Craig Pleasants is in residence this fall, in collaboration with Nova Arts and Brewbakers Cafe, and with the Gordon Matta-Clark Estate, based in Chesterfield, NH, and directed by Jessamyn Fiore.
With the Gordon Matta-Clark Estate, the residency connects to a lineage of work that reimagines buildings and public space as sites of transformation, inviting people to see, and move through, the world differently. As always, the project will evolve through dialogue, experimentation, and participation.
How the residency works
Each year, Nova Arts invites a visiting artist to spend time in Keene, typically in the fall. During the residency, the artist:
- Connects with local organizations and community members
- Develops ideas through dialogue and collaboration
- Creates public-facing experiences shaped by that process
There is no fixed outcome. Each residency evolves in response to the people and the place.
Community partners
SPAR(K) is built through collaboration with organizations across Keene. Recent partners include The Colonial Theater, Monadnock Family Services, Covenant Living of Keene, Brewbakers Cafe, and the Gordon Matta-Clark Estate. These partnerships let each residency engage different communities and perspectives.
Past residencies
2025 · The Colonial Theater
Artist: Kye Grant Kauffman. A high-energy, participatory performance, Club Alive!, brought together local performers and community members, reimagining The Showroom as a space of creative possibility.
2024 · Covenant Living of Keene
Artist: Olivia DelGandio. Explored creativity and identity in later life through collaborative work with residents and community members.
2023–24 · Monadnock Family Services
Artist: Katie Bachler. Worked with youth and staff to explore place, environment, and connection through shared creative projects centered on Keene’s waterways.
2022 · Pilot residency
Artist: Roz Crews. A participatory performance exploring emotional experience and human connection.
Background
SPAR(K) is directed by Keene artist and educator Craig Stockwell.
SPAR(K) is grounded in Keene’s tradition of community engagement and dialogue, drawing inspiration from institutions such as the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Jonathan Daniels Center for Social Responsibility. Jonathan Daniels was a civil-rights martyr born and raised in Keene. These organizations serve as referents for using the social action possibilities of art to reflect on the experience and history of others, and to bring that into our community. Social practice art emerged out of the desire to activate art in community settings, and this context supports work that is reflective, inclusive, and rooted in place.
Support SPAR(K)
SPAR(K) is made possible by foundations, businesses, individual donors, and friends. Your support helps us bring social practice artists to Keene, offer accessible public programming, and sustain community-based creative work. Make a donation.
Get involved
We welcome artists, collaborators, and community members to take part in future residencies. If you’re curious or want to be part of something new, get in touch with SPAR(K) founder and director Craig Stockwell at stockwell.craig@gmail.com or 603-762-0667.