Gearing up for our 6th summer residency during a period of tremendous collective transition and transformation, our leadership hive paused this year to ask ourselves: what makes Swarm different from other artist residencies? Why do we need to continue to make what we make, the way we make it? The answers called us into a deeper understanding of our purpose during this time.
Our community is our art.
Swarm is as rigorous in our community curation as we are in our artistic practices. Swarm is not a space designed for individuals to sit in a studio for days of work in solitude. Yes, some artists do write their greatest albums, poetry, plays, and novels. Yes, artists wander off alone into wildflower fields. Yes, they solo meditate, dream, dance, and stargaze at times. But much of the art at Swarm is made in surprising, ephemeral, and collaborative community. Swarm centers relationships over productivity: with the land, with the artists in residency, and with oneself. People are what matter most to us-- not facilities or materials. Rest assured: we still have string lights, bunk beds, and camp gear-- but it’s the people that make Swarm, Swarm.
Healing and justice are at Swarm’s core.
Swarm knows that we can’t make the art of our wildest dreams without regulated and settled nervous systems. For that reason, we prioritize healing spaces and justice to support our artists in meeting their work from a more centered and embodied place. We center BlPOC artists in our programming and interweave anti-racism learning and practice circles in our community. We couple a rigorous safety plan with spiritual hydration to ensure that our artists live well together. Nourishing food, abundant pleasure, and healing artistic practices are just a few ways that we put love into action for our community.
Adaptation is the way.
We commit to reactivating our mission and goals to stay responsive to emergent artist needs. We are a vastly different residency than when we established in 2015, and we are stronger for it. What began as a dream for a pastoral, idyllic residency in the Wisconsin woods has become a virtual and physical site for resistance, care, and healing amidst our ever-shifting and overwhelming world. We regularly test new ideas, leadership structures, and programming each year in order to craft the Swarm our community needs and desires. Just last year, we transitioned our residency online in a time when people needed community most. We constantly evolve and create the vibrant conditions artists need to enact the Swarm values of humility, flexibility, generosity, curiosity, and care.