Photo credit: Dustin Hamman

The application for the 2026 Art/sci awarded residency is due May 31, 2025.

All of PLAYA’s programs focus on expanding and deepening the field of art and science to empower the human motivation necessary for a healthy and whole future on this planet. We believe if human society is to maintain vibrancy of culture and biodiversity, it needs new ways of seeing the world. Surrounded by the richness of both the Fremont National Forest and BLM public lands, PLAYA’s programs provide ample space for study, exploration and inspiration within the high desert’s living laboratory.

Art/Sci Awarded Residencies are funded opportunities available through an application process and awarded to artists and scientists actively working to promote dialogue and positive environmental change. Residents are awarded a residency in a cohort made up of 6-10 artists and scientists spanning many disciplines. Residents stay in 1- or 2-bedroom cabins free of charge, and are responsible for their own travel costs and food while they are in residence. PLAYA is open to international and domestic applicants as long as eligibility requirements are met.

Applicants may choose a 5-, 11-, 17- or 25-night session. Most residency sessions begin on a Thursday and end on a Monday. We cannot accommodate custom residency dates, so applicants must choose from the dates available.  We are very happy to continue the more accessible 5-night residency option for residents who have commitments that make longer periods of time away from home harder to accomodate.

PLAYA recognizes that living in a remote and rural community can be challenging. If you have any questions about whether PLAYA is the best fit for you, please review our 2025 Know Before You Go Handbook. Additionally, if you have questions about the residency accommodations, please see the Cabins page of our website. For questions about the application process listed below, please call 541.943.3983 or email programs@playasummerlake.org.

Application process & Deadline

Applications for the 2026 Art/Sci Awarded Residency are due Saturday, May 31, 2025 by 11:59pm Pacific time.

PLAYA uses SlideRoom for the application portal. Applications will be evaluated on how aligned the proposed project is with PLAYA’s mission, the strength of the art and science connection in the applicant’s work, the quality of the work samples and how likely the work will evoke dialogue and positive environmental change. We do not accept residency applications by email, regular mail, or fax. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed; SlideRoom cuts off submissions at 11:59pm Pacific time on 5/31/25 so late applications will not be able to be submitted. We highly encourage you to read all application information and instructions carefully. Please note that the application questions are given as much weight at the work submissions during review. Your answers to these questions help the jury choose residents whose work is in alignment with PLAYA’s mission and whose work or project would most benefit from the natural science assets and living laboratory that PLAYA has to offer. 

RESIDENCY DETAILS

Please review our 2025 Know Before You Go Handbook to determine if a residency at PLAYA is for you. This has information about our residency program, including what PLAYA provides.

To help contain the cohort culture of this residency, and due to the limitations of our small staff, family or friends are not permitted to join you overnight during this residency. Please contact us if you have an accessibility need that requires a caretaker to live on campus, or if you have someone driving you to and from PLAYA who needs accommodation for the first and last night of the residency.

Session Schedule

Applicants will be able to list their first, second and third choice of residency date, plus additional dates they are able to attend. While every effort is made to accommodate applicants’ schedule requests, we are not always able to grant you your first choice. We schedule based on the dates you pick and the studio/living space requirements you describe at the time of application. We cannot promise to reschedule you if your availability changes at the time of registration.

2026 Art/Sci Awarded Residency date choices:
JAN 15 – FEB 9, 2026: 25 nights
FEB 12 – 23, 2026: 11 nights
FEB 26 – MAR 9, 2026: 11 nights
JULY 9 – 14, 2026: 5 nights
JULY 17 – AUG 3, 2026: 17 nights
AUG 6 – 17, 2026: 11 nights
OCT 8 – NOV 2, 2026: 25 nights
NOV 19 – 30, 2026: 11 nights

Eligibility

PLAYA’s residencies are open to the global community of scientists and artists whose work promotes dialogue and positive change in the environment and the world. Both established and emerging artists working in any media (visual, music/sound, literary, journalism, video, interdisciplinary, new media, other) may apply. We encourage all artists and scientists to apply, including (but limited to) naturalists, biologists, musicians, designers, sustainability leaders, social practitioners, musicians, visual artists, writers and performing artists. Applicants must demonstrate how their work aligns with our mission and how they, or their project, will benefit from time on the land where PLAYA resides. All residents must be 18 years old or older. Residents’ work must be compatible with PLAYA’s available studio spaces, facilities, and resources, and with PLAYA’s rural setting and community (see below).

Regarding reapplication: Past residents or applicants must submit new and complete applications. Past residents must wait two years after the date of their last residency to re-apply to PLAYA; people participating in the the Themed Residency are exempt from this rule.

Fees

This residency is free to attend but there is a $30 application fee. Payment will be collected when you submit your application. This fee covers the cost of using the SlideRoom service as well as contributes to the renumeration of PLAYA’s Program staff who manages the software. If this fee prohibits you from applying, please email programs@playasummerlake.org by May 29, 2025 to request a waiver. There is no explanation needed. Collaborative teams are welcome to request fee waivers for additional applications regardless of financial need.

selection process

Applications close on May 31, 2025 and review begins immediately. All applicants will be notified of the status of their application by September 1, 2025. The curators, comprised of artists, scientists and arts professionals, will judge the applications on the following criteria:

• Please rate the quality of work represented in the work samples.

• Please rate the strength of the connection between art and science, especially in relation to the natural science assets available at PLAYA. Are the topics of the proposed project or process related to what PLAYA can offer and the natural assets available here? Do they describe their methods to address, integrate, and/or collaborate with this environment?

• Please rate the likelihood that this applicant’s work will evoke dialogue or critical thinking on positive environmental change relevant to PLAYA, Lake County and the world. As there is no environmental change without social equity, please positively rate discussions of social change if they are in relation to environmental change.

application questions

There is a 1500 character (or about 250 word) limit per short answer question. You will be able to save your responses in the SlideRoom portal as you work your way through the application.

• Multiple choice: For which category are you applying? Select one: visual arts, literary arts, performing arts, interdisciplinary arts or new media, or science.
• Short answer: Please tell us about yourself and your artistic or scientific practice. If you are an artist, please also tell us about the connection between art and science in your past work.
• Short answer: Please describe with specificity how a residency at PLAYA and on the land where it resides will inform your work and creative/professional development. For example, you can describe your methods to address, integrate, and/or collaborate with this environment. Learn more about our location and mission on our website.
• Short answer: Please describe your proposed residency project or process.
• Short answer: How do you intend for your proposed residency project or process to promote dialogue and positive environmental change?
• Yes/No response: PLAYA is invested in our local Lake County community and we are hoping to develop more pathways for Awarded Residents to engage meaningfully with that community. Should opportunities become available, might you be interested in community engagement? If you select ‘Yes,’ PLAYA will be in touch as opportunities arise. Options for how to engage with the Lake County community could include: offering an art, science or art/sci workshop to a local K-12 school, volunteering locally, helping with communications via radio station, social media or blog, or other opportunities to be determined.

Additional application questions

Curators will not have access to your responses to the below questions:

• Multiple choice: Please mark your first, second and third choices from the available 2026 residency dates. If selected, we will do our best but we cannot guarantee first or second choice (see available dates above).
• Optional short answer: If other dates in this list work for you, please write those below. 
• Yes/No response: Have you previously been awarded a residency at PLAYA? Alumni are not prioritized over new residents. If yes, please list the date below. 
• Yes/No response: Are you applying as a collaborative team? Each person needs to submit a separate application. If yes, please list their name(s) below. Additionally, please describe your housing requirements as collaborators. For instance, will you share a bedroom or do you need separate bedrooms or separate cabins?
• Short answer: Please describe all of your studio space needs. Please review the “Facilities + Site” section of the Know Before You Go Handbook (pages 10-13) to see what PLAYA provides in each space.
• Optional short answer: Do you have any accessibility needs that should be considered when assigning you housing and studio space? PLAYA has one ADA accessible cabin with attached studio, and the PLAYA Commons also has ADA accessible areas.
• Yes/No response: Though this residency is free, we understand there may be costs associated with attending. Should the funds become available to PLAYA, would you like to be considered for a cost of living stipend to help you cover the cost of attending this residency?

PLAYA also includes an optional section in which applicants can share their demographic information. Answers to these questions will help equip our staff to better serve residents, improve program design and measure outcomes, including to what extent we are reaching our goal of supporting individuals from under-resourced communities. This information, or declining to provide it, will have no impact on your selection for a PLAYA residency. Aggregate data will only be shared with PLAYA staff, governors and grantors. Providing your information here is completely optional and curators will not have access to it.

We also include a short optional section in which applicants can provide feedback on our application process. The two questions are:

• Optional short answer: What can we do to make our application process easier?
• Optional short answer: How did you learn about the PLAYA Awarded Residency program?

Work Sample Requirements

• Visual Artists:
• 10-15 images 
• Title, date, size, media, and a brief description
• Musicians/Sound Artists:
• 3-5 sample recordings of your work not to exceed 15 minutes total 
• Title, date, and a brief description of your selections
• Performing Artists:
• 3-5 video clips of your performances not to exceed 15 minutes total 
• Title, date, and script or a brief description of your selections
• Literary Artists:
• 3-5 samples not to exceed 10 pages total
• Title, date, and a brief description of your selections
• Your writing samples should be representative of the genre in which you plan to work while in residence.
• New Media and Interdisciplinary Artists:
• Audio and video submissions should not exceed 15 minutes. Written submissions should not exceed 10 pages. Visual art submissions should not exceed 15 images. In total, please do not submit a combined amount of more than 15 pages, images or minutes of material. For example, if submitting a combination of written and visual work, you could submit 10 pages and 5 images. If submitting audio/video and visual work, you could submit 5 minutes of audio/video and 10 images. We recommend submitting at least 7 separate pieces. If you are working in multiple disciplines or have your work archived in multimedia, you are welcome to submit a portfolio of works as long as it is within the submission guidelines. If you are new to interdisciplinary work, submit your best current work in your primary discipline and describe your plans to work in a cross-disciplinary manner.

• Science/Naturalist/Creative Research:
• Provide up to 10 pages of abstracts, presentation slides or other media that are representative of your work; this can include any combination of elements that can effectively illustrate your research.

All disciplines: Providing 3-15 items is required. Media accepted: images (up to 5MB each), video (up to 250MB each), audio (up to 30MB each), PDFs (up to 10MB each) and models (Sketchfab). You may also link to media from YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud, but clips should not exceed 15 minutes total. When submitting media during the application process, you will be prompted to add title, date, etc in an accompanying form. Not meeting the above criteria will disqualify your application from consideration.

Quality is more important than quantity. If you are a couple or collaboration please provide a portfolio of work samples especially of what work you have done together. If your project does not fall clearly within one of the above disciplines such as new genre or multidisciplinary, please select the closest category. 

Installation Art: If your work at PLAYA includes any processes that may result in any changes to the visual or physical environment of PLAYA, you must first receive prior approval from the Program Manager once you are here. Only ephemeral outdoor installation or sculpture which do not impact the land will be approved. Activities include, but are not limited to, relocating earth (rocks, sand or other), cutting or removal of plants, and/or using technology that might adversely affect biotic species (or the tranquility of the PLAYA experience). Please consider the seven principles of Leave No Trace when designing ephemeral outdoor art.

Collaborations

We welcome collaborations, including groups which include artists and scientists. Each person must apply separately and indicate on the application who they are collaborating with. Please note that we review and accept applications individually. Each member of the collaborative team must apply and be accepted on their own merit. Answers to the essay questions can reference a collaborative project but must be unique and in each applicant’s own voice. Please do not copy and paste answers. We are interested in each voice of the collaborative team and how each person answers the questions. If all applicants are accepted, PLAYA will schedule collaborative teams together if the collaborative partners choose the same 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice of residency dates in the application. It is possible that not all members of the collaborative team will be accepted.

We will only charge an application fee for the first application. The additional collaborators can email programs@playasummerlake.org to request a fee waiver. You will have space in the application to describe housing requirements for collaborative partners.

Couples

Couples may apply individually for concurrent residencies with the understanding that one applicant might be accepted and the other not. If requesting accommodations as a couple, awarded residents will have an opportunity to indicate housing details after they’ve been accepted. We are not able to accommodate families or children.

REFERENCES

Two references are required for this application. A simple form will automatically be sent to your references’ email addresses. References are primarily used to determine how well you will be able to function in a self-directed environment and in community with others. Be sure to list references from people who can speak to these things, rather than seeking references who have a cachet but don’t know you well; if you have attended other residencies, consider the residency director or other staff as a reference.

Applications close on May 31st, 2025, but your references will have until Sunday, June 15th, 2025 to complete the form. If we do not receive a response from at least two references, we will not be able to consider your application. You will be able to log back into your SlideRoom account through June 15th, 2025 to edit references’ contact information and to check the status of your reference form submissions. 

Reference form questions:

studio/Work spaces

Please review the “Facilities + Site” section of the Know Before You Go Handbook (pages 10-13) to see what PLAYA provides in each space. Brief descriptions are below:

• Sandhill Studio – Printmaking, Book Arts, and Visual Arts -Well equipped studio with 2 manual etching presses and blankets. Accommodates work on paper up to 22” X 30″
• Avocet Studio – Multi-Purpose Visual Art Studio
• Wildcat Studio – Multi-Purpose Studio
• Diablo Studio – Multi-Purpose Studio
• Petroglyph Studio – Multi-Purpose Studio
• Movement Studio in Commons
• Moonglade Studio: Music & Multipurpose Studio
• Writing work spaces in most cabins
• Smaller “non-messy” art studios in 2-3 cabins

SUPPORT

In the event that PLAYA receives specific funding for cost-of-living stipends, we will reach out at that time to qualifying Awarded Residents. We have included a question in the application where applicants can let us know if they would like to be considered for this stipend with a simple Yes or No response. Otherwise, all Awarded Residents can expect the gift of lodging and a weekly group meal. Residents are expected to cover groceries for meals not provided, personal living expenses, and materials and supplies. 

For Oregon-based applicants seeking grant funding for this opportunity, please see Oregon Community Foundation’s Creative Heights Grant and James and Marion Miller Foundation’s Spark Awards for Mid-Career Artists.

Cancellation

We are unable to reschedule cancelled residencies. If you are accepted and you can not make your residency, for whatever reason, we consider that a forfeit. If you accept a residency and leave early, we consider this a forfeit as well.

Tips for Applying for Residencies

Provide quality work samples: The quality of your work samples is one of the most important factors when applying to a residency. Here are some tips:

• Use a professional photographer, audio engineer, videographer, etc. to ensure your work is well documented.
• Select your strongest recent work. Have a friend or colleague you trust to look over the samples you have chosen to give you feedback. If you are moving in a new direction in your work but do not yet have good examples of your new work, choose work samples that demonstrate your strongest work and then discuss the new ideas in the narrative parts of your application.
• Select a coherent set of work samples. Submit a happy medium between too few samples that are not varied and too much many samples that are extremely varied. The jurors don’t need to know that you are interested in everything; they just want to know what is most compelling and that you have enough depth in your creative practice to explore ideas.

Articulate your interest in this residency: Demonstrate in the questions section that you have done your homework and know why this particular residency is of interest to you. Perhaps you are drawn to its location, history, technical equipment and facilities, the surrounding community, the other kinds of artists that attend, the organization’s values, etc. – whatever the reason, find a way to connect with the residency program in a meaningful way.

Show appropriate project plans: Project and process proposals are used to help the residency staff and jury better understand your thought process, your ability to imagine the possibilities of a residency, and your recognition of what is appropriate for this particular residency. For example, an artist applying for a rural, isolated residency whose work normally involves urban landscapes should discuss how a new environment will further their work. Project and process proposals also allow the organization to plan what facilities or equipment you might need and whether they can accommodate your needs. Additionally, a connection to or interest in the specific land on which PLAYA resides is important to this residency. We suggest discussing with specificity how you plan to address, integrate, and/or collaborate with this environment.

Choose your references wisely: PLAYA only requires references to fill out a form which mostly includes multiple choice questions. There is only one short answer question which asks them to briefly describe in what capacity they know you; there are no formal reference letters required. These multiple choice questions are primarily used to determine how well you will be able to function in a self-directed environment and in community with others. Be sure to list references from people who can speak to these things, rather than seeking references who have a cachet but don’t know you well; if you have attended other residencies, consider the residency director or other staff as a reference.

Not sure about something? Ask!: Applying for a residency, especially if it is your first time, is nerve-wracking. If you are unsure what is being asked of you, whether you might be a good fit for the program, which discipline to apply for, which application deadline is more competitive, if the campus can accommodate your workplace needs, or any other questions, just email the residency. Be clear and concise in your email and solicit feedback well in advance of a deadline. And if you are not accepted, ask for feedback. Not every program offers this, but it can’t hurt to ask!

 

APPLY

Applications accepted through May 31, 2025!