Project Background

The City Yards campus is a 14.7-acre site located at 2500 Michigan Avenue between Michigan and Delaware Avenues and 26th and Stewart Streets in Santa Monica, CA. In 2019, the City embarked on a long-term renovation project, with the first phase anticipating completion in summer 2023. This Phase I added three new buildings: an Operations Center with a public help desk, a Fire Training facility, and a Fleet Maintenance building.

Other renovations are on hold until additional funding is identified, with an estimate of 10-20 years before the project enters Phase II. When that second phase of renovations is complete, the campus will become more open and available to the public. Until that time, public interaction with the site is limited to visiting the Operations Building lobby and viewing the City Yards campus exterior.

Departments based at City Yards are: Public Works and its divisions of Resource Recovery & Recycling, Water Resources, Fleet Services, Facilities Maintenance, Custodial, Carpentry, Electrical, HVAC, Graffiti Removal and Plumbing; the Fire Department’s training program; and the Clerk’s Office Print Shop. Also connected to this project is the Office of Sustainability and Environment, which is not housed at City Yards.

The City of Santa Monica is internationally recognized for its commitment to sustainability, and its current priorities are water self-sufficiency, zero waste, and carbon neutrality. The Resource Recovery and Recycling division is in the midst of a drive to promote the practice of organics recycling throughout the City, a program that has been given greater urgency by the passing of Senate Bill 1383 requiring all Californians and California businesses to recycle their food waste, green waste, and food soiled papers (collectively known as “organics”) and establishing methane reduction targets for California.

The Resident’s projects realized at this site will respond to this drive and other activities of Resource Recovery and Recycling at City Yards. Overall themes include ecological sustainability and justice, the cycle of municipal maintenance activity and its connections to the community, and/or the labor of essential workers at this site.

Residency Activities

The Resident Artist will work with staff in the Resource Recovery and Recycling (RRR) Division to learn about Division activities, priorities, schedule and capacity, and through staff and public engagement, illuminating the work of RRR. The Resident might additionally delve into the history and general operations of the City Yards site, potentially expanding their project to include neighboring businesses and residents, the histories and displacements of previous dwellers and users of the site, previous artwork at the site, or other topics.

The residency will begin at contract signing, estimated in early 2023, and include regular communications with staff and a major checkpoint in June 2023 to assess accomplishments and adjust the workplan as necessary. The Resident Artist’s workplan will include a project evaluation that summarizes the activities of the residency, presents qualitative data from public and staff responses, and proposes a structure and considerations for similar future residencies that embed artists with City divisions. The residency will conclude in spring 2024.

The City will provide scheduled access to RRR administration and ride-alongs with staff, and some use of office resources during the residency. For 2022-2024, two main RRR topics of interest are the implementation of the SB 1383 statewide mandatory organics recycling mandate and the celebration and illumination of the lives of essential workers on the RRR team. RRR events include compost giveaways, paper shredding and electronic waste disposal, mattress and carpet recycling events, motor oil collection and used oil filter exchanges, and holiday tree collection. The Resident will also have opportunities to integrate with other annual events such as the Greens Festival in Virginia Avenue Park.

Strategies might include oral history gathering, visibility campaigns with signage and wayfinding, artwork on sanitation trucks and street sweepers, or other temporary or permanent projects that engage the community with the stories of City Yards and RRR, and reveal community connectedness with the work of sustainability, maintenance and waste management. As the only public access point in City Yards, the Operations Building lobby is a potential site for permanent work to be installed if proposed in the residency plan. Other opportunities may be revealed throughout the resident’s tenure and incorporated into the workplan.

The Resident Artist is encouraged to include artists of different disciplines, graphic designers, performers, or other subcontractors in the execution of a multifaceted residency plan.

The Resident Artist will be encouraged to take part in monthly RRR public events. 

In addition to an evaluation document, the Resident Artist should plan for a final presentation, exhibit, performance, or other event to be coordinated with RRR, that may take place during a regularly scheduled RRR event. This event should take place on or before spring 2024.

Budget

The all-inclusive budget for artist fee, planning and execution of all residency activities, including stakeholder and public engagement, project management, licensing and insurance, potential recruitment and supervision of other artists, fabrication and installation of any temporary or permanent work, and evaluation, is $80,000.

Selection Process and Criteria

Upon review of materials submitted in response to the Request for Qualifications, the panel will select up to five (5) semifinalists who will be invited to visit the site, develop a project proposal and participate in a virtual interview where they will be asked to make a presentation that addresses their previous work and their project proposal. Once interviews have concluded, a finalist may be recommended to the Santa Monica Public Art Committee and Arts Commission for approval.

Finalists will receive an $800 honorarium to develop their proposal and presentation.

The criteria for the evaluation of qualifications is as follows:

• Professional qualifications: a record of achievement within social practice or community organizing in an artmaking context. Successfully completed projects that deeply engaged with stakeholders—especially in public space, as evidenced by samples, resume and professional recognition.
• Merit and relevance: the quality, innovation, creativity and/or artistic merit of past projects, the authentic connections and relations to the communities and sites of these projects, and ideally, relevance to the specific concerns and themes of City Yards as described above.
• Technical and logistical experience, including an understanding of appropriate processes for community and stakeholder engagement, the use of artwork in public space, and ability to adhere to timelines and budgets, especially in a government context.

When selecting a finalist during the proposal round, the panel will consider the above qualifications more specifically in relation to proposals received. One artist/artist team may be selected for the Residency and enter into contract(s) for the residency term with a scope based on their proposal.

Intervention opportunities

In addition to working with City staff of the Resource Recovery and Recycling Division and the general public, the RRR Artist Residency offers opportunities for the Resident Artist and their team to create temporary or permanent responses to the structure, uses, and activities of the campus as an organic result of their engagement. The Resident Artist is encouraged to consider a multimodal approach to the project and work with other artists as subcontractors to execute an expansive strategy.

The Residency does not require any specific permanent or temporary artwork to be installed at any sites, however some potential opportunities include:

Michigan Avenue wall – This is the primary approach to the City Yards campus, and the current public entrance is located on the south side of this street at the east end across from the Bergamot Station entrance. The Michigan Ave wall stretches across almost the entire north side of City Yards. The portion of this wall that is slated for demolition in the next 10-20 years, totaling ~350’ wide and 11’3” - 15’3” high, may be available for temporary works.

Operations Building – An installation on an exterior wall, and/or the interior walls or ceiling of the lobby of the City Yards Operations facility. This is the only area for consideration within the interior of City Yards that will be accessible to the public. At this location visitors may, for example, buy a compost bin, pay a water bill, or discuss a construction waste management plan. The exterior north wall of the building consists of CMU block and measures 61’ x 16’. An interior (east) CMU wall in the lobby measures 24.5' wide x 13.5-15.5' high. Lobby circulating space is ~170 sq ft.

Truck alterations – The City’s fleet of approximately thirty waste management vehicles offer space for messaging or flat artwork and visit every area of Santa Monica.  

Regular RRR events – The division holds semimonthly events, which include recycling events, paper shredding, repair cafes, used motor oil recycling, and compost giveaways.

Project Timeline (estimated)

• RFQ Released September 14, 2022
• Responses Due Monday October 17, 2022 (10:59pm PT)
• Semi-finalists notified November 2, 2022
• Semi-finalists Site Walk / Q&A November 9, 2022
• Proposal Presentations to panel, preliminary notification December 1, 2022
• Arts Commission review / final decision Winter 22/23
• Contracting January-March, 2023
• Midway workplan checkpoint  June 2023
• Project Evaluation due ~January 2024

Application Requirements

Your application should include:

1.     Statement of Interest

Please describe your interest in and qualifications for this project. This should include descriptions of any successfully completed, similar projects.

2.     Artist Statement

Provide a statement about the body of your work and current explorations.

3.     Worksamples

Upload all worksamples into the CaFE “My Portfolio” section, which can be utilized for this and future calls. For this call, submit 3 - 15 images of past work and up to 4 media files in link or uploaded form (links are preferred.) List title of work, medium, dimensions, year completed and up to 300 characters of description. For the required “sale status” question, select no. For the “Art in Public Places” question, if the sample is not of studio work, select yes and then enter the location and commissioning body, even if the work is not publicly available.

4.     Resume/Biographical Statement

Provide an outline of your professional experience as an artist. If submitting qualifications as a team, please provide a statement for each member of the team AND the designated team contact. Please limit your statement to 4 pages per team member. This upload should be 1 (one) single PDF.

Eligibility Criteria

This competition is open to artists/artist teams who reside in Southern California—defined as San Louis Obispo, Kern, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, San Diego and Imperial Counties. Artists must have social practice, community organizing, and/or civic art experience. Teams are permitted to apply, but a single artist would be considered the primary Resident for this opportunity. Because of the nature of the residency, non Los Angeles County-based artists should carefully consider and explain their availability in their application and, if moving on to the proposal stage, any travel expenses in their project budget.

Previous experience in a socially engaged multifaceted art project is required and should be demonstrated. The selected artist must be able to satisfy the City’s contract requirements and be available to meet several times over the multi-year timeframe with City staff, the project team and City advisory boards and commissions. City employees, current City contract holders, and members of City Council, Boards and Commissions are not eligible for this opportunity. Artists may not receive more than one City public percent-for-art project commission in a three-year period.