Denver Botanic Gardens’ artist residency program, Land Line, is dedicated to supporting artists who foster appreciation, understanding, and stewardship of the natural world. By celebrating individual perspectives and encouraging creative exchange, the residency program seeks to inspire and bring awareness to nature and explore humanity’s unique connection to the landscape.  

Land Line’s flexible format allows artists to maintain other professional pursuits while being supported by the residency. Selected creatives will have access to the Gardens’ collections (living plants, natural history, art, books), scientists, curators, and multiple locations for their work, including the Denver York Street location and the working farm and native plant refuge Chatfield Farms location. Artists working in a variety of disciplines and media will be considered, including visual art, music, spoken word, poetry/literature, film/animation, and other born-digital projects. Botanical illustrators are included within this program to work with the School of Botanical Art & Illustration alongside the Gardens Research & Conservation team in particular. 

Denver Botanic Gardens seeks to support and strengthen diverse perspectives—BIPOC applicants and individuals who identify as part of an historically marginalized group are strongly encouraged to submit. 

RESIDENCY FORMAT 

Artists in residence are expected to explore and enhance the Gardens’ mission to connect people with plants. There will be opportunities to learn about Colorado ecosystems, similar steppe regions/biomes around the world, native plants and endangered species. 

Artists can take advantage of regular site visits and in-person meetings to create their [body of] work. Artists outside of Colorado and/or the Denver Metro can conduct the majority of their residency remotely but will be required to visit in person at least once to talk with staff and explore gardens and collections. Travel and lodging is coordinated by the artist and paid from within the residency honorarium. 

Residency Length: Residency lengths can vary based on the nature of an artist’s medium and project, but typically span two to three months with timeframe and site visits to be arranged with and approved by Gardens staff. 

Honorarium: $3,500 

Expectations: As product and documentation of the residency, Denver Botanic Gardens shall receive one artwork and retain the right to use an image or other representation to promote the artist, the residency, or related programs.  

Deadline: Sunday, March 20, 2022 

To Apply: Submit the following materials and answer questions accordingly. 

Artist Bio (250 word max)  

Artist Statement / Residency Concept (450 word max) 

How will a residency with Denver Botanic Gardens support your artistic practice and foster new investigations? How does your body of work (past, current, or proposed) connect with the natural world and support the Gardens’ mission to connect people with plants—and with each other? How does your work or project bolster diversity of voices and perspectives of how humanity interacts with and responds to the natural world? 

Website / Link to Professional Portfolio 

Work Samples 

According to CaFÉ technical specifications, we accept the following file formats. 

Visual Art:  Three to five representative images. 1200 pixels or greater on the longest side. Under 5 MB in size with an sRGB color profile. 

Digital media/film: Three to five representative examples of work, which may include high-resolution digital images, demo reel, or other video or media files no more than 10 minutes in length. 

Audio performance/ sound art/music/spoken word: Three to five representative examples of work submitted as digital files, no longer than 10 minutes in length. 

Writing: If prose, one story or essay, 2000 words max. If poetry, three to five poems. PDF files only. 

Filetypes accepted: JPEG, JPG, MOV, MP4, WMV, 3GP, AVI, ASF, MPG, M2T, MKV, M2TS, PDF. Must be under 100 MB, with a minimum resolution of 640 x 480 and maximum of 1920 x 1080. Aspect ratio of 4:3 or 16:9 with a bit rate above 240 kbps. Frame rate between 12 fps and 30 fps. AIFF, WAV, XMF, MP3 under 10 MB in size. Bit rate range: minimum 96 kpbs- maximum 320 kbps. Codec: aiff, wav, au. 

Resume / CV  

Two References 

Please include name, title or relationship, and email address.  

Additional Details 

Artists will provide their own art supplies and other equipment needed to produce artworks. Artist is additionally responsible for payment and arrangement of their own travel, transportation, housing, and related living expenses including meals. The honorarium may be used to support this. 

Application Requirements

REQUIREMENTS: 

Considered applicants must provide a minimum of three professional samples of their work in at least one of the media categories referenced below. Applicants can submit work into more than one media category so long as they meet the three-sample minimum for each category they submit works to. 

Media Categories.

Images - Minimum: 0, Maximum: 5 

Audio - Minimum: 0, Maximum: 5 

Video - Minimum: 0, Maximum: 5 

Total Media - Minimum: 3, Maximum: 15 

Eligibility Criteria

The residency is open to all professional and emerging artists located in the continental U.S.A., age 21 and over, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, marital status, or disability.