Introducing Our 2026 Open Call Residency Cohorts

Introducing Our 2026 Open Call Residency Cohorts

2.5.2026

 

The Luminary is thrilled to introduce our 2026 Residency Cohorts, marking the beginning of a year-long collaboration with eleven artists, curators, writers, and organizers. Over the coming year, residents will pursue creative research and develop new projects in and in dialogue with St. Louis.

The 2026 Open Call residency program is framed by ECHOES / ECOS, a thematic lens that considers how ideas, technologies, environments, and communities reverberate across social, political, and planetary systems. Within this framework, research is approached as a collective, responsive process—asking how signals travel, mutate, and return through shared cultural and ecological contexts.

Selection Process

Selected through a highly competitive open call that received over 130 applications from sixteen countries across five continents, the 2026 residents were chosen by a jury composed of artist Chloë Bass and curator-writers Pia Singh and TK Smith.

Residents were organized into three thematic cohorts based on shared points of convergence across research interests, questions, and artistic approaches—designed to foster cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural exchange. These themes function as flexible frameworks rather than prescriptive prompts, allowing residents to pursue experimental and critical inquiry grounded in their own practices.

2026 Residency Cohorts

AI & Creative Ethics

  • Amada Miller (Marathon, TX)

  • Jordan Brown (Baltimore, MD)

  • Elizabeth Withstandley (Los Angeles, CA)

Free Speech & Artistic Expression

  • Rami George (Philadelphia, PA)

  • Joyce Chung (Philadelphia, PA)

  • CAO Collective (Laura Dudu (Oakland, CA) & Huiyin Zhou (Durham, NC))

Climate Futures

  • Barnett Bolen Projects (Nina Barnett (Johannesburg, SA) Jeremy Bolen (Atlanta, GA))

  • Erin Turner (Brooklyn, NY)

  • Sang Woo Yoo (Chicago, IL)

About the Residency Program

The Luminary’s Residency Program offers fully funded, two-week residencies to artists, curators, and critics working in innovative and unconventional ways. Each cohort receives time, space, and resources to pursue research, collaboration, and experimentation, with an emphasis on process and new forms.

 

Throughout the residency, our staff engage participants through site visits, studio visits, and community-based encounters that respond to their evolving interests. Residents are also invited to take part in public and educational programming — such as artist talks, panel discussions, and workshops — where they can share their work and perspectives with a wider audience.

 

This year’s program is made possible by the generous support of the Teiger Foundation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the Regional Arts Commission, and individual supporters.

Learn more about each of the 2026 Open Call residents here: https://theluminaryarts.com/past-residents

 
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