Artist in Residence Program

In four residency sessions of three artists each, artists will join research guides as they live and explore in the Paint Rock ecosystem for three days. Artists who are selected for this residency will become ecological explorers and interpreters, engaging directly with researchers studying forest dynamics, biodiversity, caves, aquatics, and conservation science. Guided excursions will take artists into a private, protected landscape that harbors some of Appalachia’s most wondrous habitats and species. Scientists, in turn, will become collaborators in creative inquiry, sharing knowledge while encountering new ways of seeing the landscapes they study. The resulting artworks should examine forests not simply as places but as processes—living systems in motion and people who are in turn moved as they enter and engage with them.

Forests have always moved, because they must—in distribution, in diversity, in genetics. At Paint Rock Research Center, in the Cumberland Plateau of Jackson County, Alabama, our team and other scientists from around the world are working hard to understand these changing, dynamic systems on our 4,000-acre preserve. While doing so, we heed the encouragement of one of our cofounders, naturalist E.O. Wilson, to further our knowledge by exploring how the forest moves us—in curiosities, in connections, in actions. 

The 2027 cohort of artists-in-residence will be led by artists, designers, and educators from the Department of Art + Design at Jacksonville State University, who can provide guidance, conversations, and critiques, as well as foster interdisciplinary collaboration and conversation among the attending artists. We welcome diversity in our attending artists and a diversity in styles and forms of art: