Wexner Center Residency Awards "Seldom have I seen an organization put so much of its resources behind the creation of a new work."—Bill T. Jones "The Wexner Center provided me and my company three solid weeks of perfect focus—the Holy Grail in any artist’s experience."—Elizabeth Streb, Ringside Wexner Center Residency Awards support the creation or completion of new works by providing significant financial resources and technical support to selected artists. The artists are chosen by the Wexner Center’s curators. Sometimes a single artist is selected in a given program area. Other times the residency award is divided among several artists.
			Many residency award artists participate in open rehearsals, studio visits, and classroom sessions for the university and local communities. Choreographer Bill T. Jones conducted research for Still/Here, his groundbreaking evocation of life, death, and healing, at workshops facilitated by the Wexner Center. He returned to develop and rehearse portions of the work here, while artist Gretchen Bender created its video scenic elements in the center’s Art & Technology studio. Choreographer Elizabeth Streb held open rehearsals almost every day for three weeks while her Ringside company developed the trampoline-powered UP at the Wexner Center.
			Several residency projects have relied on even closer involvement with the university community. Alexis Smith's residency coincided with her work on a public art commission for Ohio State's Jerome Schottenstein Center. She delved deeply into the history and current life of the university, while developing an Ohio State–inspired installation for the center and terrazzo floor mosaics for the Schott. In The Class of 2001, an unusual collective video project, four media artists developed separate works involving Ohio State undergraduates between their freshmen year in 1997 and graduation in June 2001.
			The center’s emphasis on cross-disciplinary explorations is particularly evident in Wexner Center Residency Award projects. Some artists seize the opportunity to explore new territory and cross the boundaries of their specific residency area to use varied resources at the center and the university. Visual artist Lorna Simpson utilized the Art & Technology facilities to develop her first installation incorporating film. Choreographer Ann Carlson and visual artists Barbara Kruger and Ann Hamilton also worked in Art & Tech to investigate the potential of moving images in their art.
			Chris Marker, best known as a filmmaker, developed an extensive gallery installation, Silent Movie, as his residency project. It’s become one of the Wexner Center’s most widely exhibited projects, traveling to Los Angeles, New York, London, Korea, and Belgium, among other locales. It’s even appeared in a movie, Ismail Merchant’s The Proprietor starring Jeanne Moreau.
			Explore residency award projects by artist Ann Hamilton, artist and architect Maya Lin, artist Barbara Kruger, and filmmaker Chris Marker.
			Additional Artists’ Residencies Many artists participate in residency activities while at the Wexner Center to perform, exhibit, or work in Art & Tech. These residencies also are intended primarily to support the artists’ creative endeavors. But they also offer our audiences insights into the creative processes behind works they experience here. Some residencies extend over several weeks of on-site creative development and/or community interaction. Other residency activities can be as simple as hosting a preperformance discussion or meeting with a class. Invitations for such residencies are also extended by the center’s curators. The following are examples of some of these many fascinating residencies.
			In performing arts, tap dance sensation Savion Glover spent nearly a month at the Wexner Center developing and debuting his first independent concert program. He participated in a special Family Day performance and met with young participants in community after-school programs. Wynton Marsalis and members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra have also presented Family Day concerts and "informances" for school groups during their visits to the center. In May 2001, vanguard theater ensemble da da kamera spent a two-week creative residency at the center developing its next production, Beautiful View. Work-in-progress performances featured students from Ohio State’s Departments of Theatre and Dance.
			In visual arts, photographer Dawoud Bey presented an extended workshop for Columbus high school students in conjunction with an exhibition of his own images. Artist Mark Dion worked closely with departments across campus in assembling the materials for his Cabinet of Curiosities, a Wexner Center–commissioned exhibition that explored the collecting impulse. Artists participating in the Notations exhibitions series during the summer of 2002 worked with community centers and youths from the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Children of the Future program.
			Media arts residencies are usually closely tied to artists utilizing the facilities of the Art & Technology studio and editing suite. During October 2000, eight media artists from Eastern Europe and the Ohio Valley came together for Crossing Over V, a two-week workshop in Art & Tech. Each artist produced a videoshort during the residency, which culminated with a mini-festival screening. Filmmaker Gregg Bordowitz has not only completed post-production work at the Wexner Center, he filmed The Suicide, an adaptation of Stalin era play by Soviet writer Nikolai Erdman, in a specially designed set on site. Here are some of the other artists who have worked in Art & Tech.
			The center’s education department also develops and hosts residencies in which artists from the local community present programs for teachers and school groups. In 2000–01 poet Terry Hermsen explored poetry and its relationship to the visual arts in teacher workshops and projects with middle- and high-school students. In 2001–02 media artist Susan B. Halpern investigated filmmaking with teachers and high school students.