PlatteForum has been serving artists, youth, families, and the Denver community since 2002. The organization hosts an award winning youth development program, a world-class Resident Artist program, and a slew of other arts education and community engagement programs.

PlatteForum’s innovative model teams youth with professional artists in learning laboratory settings to build meaningful connections and to collaborate on creative projects, all while supporting participants with wrap-around resources. These resources include mental health support for youth, groceries, stipends, transportation assistance, and arts and technology supplies and are rooted in organizational values of equity and accessibility. 

Goals of PlatteForum’s Resident Artist program include: to support working artists to create new work to catalyze conversation and action for social change; to offer professional development for working artists including supported teaching experiences; to foster mutually beneficial and generative connections and education between professional artists and youth; and to engage the artist’s work in the larger context of Denver’s arts and culture community. 

The Resident Artist program at PlatteForum is competitive with over 100 applications and only 4-5 slots awarded each year. Residencies happen one at a time for 6-8 weeks and adhere to the following schedule:

Resident Artist 1: Sept-Nov 2025
Resident Artist 2: Jan-March 2026
Resident Artist 3 March-May 2026
Resident Artist  4: June-July 2026

The Artist Residency program is open to artists in all genres and disciplines. Applications from established professional artists, emerging artists, and graduate students are welcome. We encourage local, national, and international artists to apply. Former Resident Artists may apply again after a three-year waiting period. For example, a Resident Artist from the 2022-23 season is not eligible to apply until the 2025-26 season.

Send application questions to igutin@platteforum.org

SELECTION PROCESS: A diverse selection committee will consider applications for the residencies. Care will be given to selecting artists who represent a diversity of disciplines, genres, life experiences and backgrounds, and ideas. Artists will be notified of their acceptance into this program no later than June 1st, 2025.

STIPEND and SUPPORT: PlatteForum provides Resident Artists a working stipend ($350/week) and a materials stipend (up to $750). Resident Artists also receive private studio and gallery space, artist housing (for out of town artists), and staff support in the creation, marketing, installation, and coordination of their exhibition. Professional documentation of the culminating exhibition or performance is provided by PlatteForum for the Resident Artist to use in their portfolio. PlatteForum offers an additional $250 for artist participation in the ArtMoves Podcast and Artist Conversations series, and pays artists a $200 stipend for pre-residency workshop curriculum planning in collaboration with PlatteForum youth program staff. 

FACILITIES and SERVICES: Resident artists will have 24 hour access to our studio and gallery space. 

INTERNET ACCESS: Wireless internet, and wireless printers are available at the facility.

RESIDENCY FEES: None.

ADDITIONAL EXPECTATIONS and COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: A strong theme of PlatteForum’s Artist Residency involves strengthening individual practice through collaboration. Resident Artists dedicate 4-6 hours each week (plus planning time as necessary) to work with a group of high school-aged youth from historically marginalized communities in intensive workshops that build upon the ideas and forms of the Resident. In collaboration with PlatteForum staff, the Residence Artist will create, organize and facilitate a series of youth workshops on Saturdays at our ArtLab program. Each Residency culminates in a public exhibition or performance where the work and ideas of the Resident Artist and the youth are presented together. For more information about these expectations, please email PlatteForum at igutin@platteforum.org
 

Testimonials:

“The residency really challenged me to push my work in new directions because it was a great experimental platform that really opened up some new possibilities in the way that I work.” - Tricia Waddell, 2024 Resident Artist 

"My practice has been super expansive and I was able to dive deeper in a new medium here. I was able to work with teens for the first time and experience their creativity and the opportunity to put on a show at the end of their residency was really an incredible thing to work towards. I mean, I think what was most surprising or kind of new for me being at this residency was having so much focus." - Lexy Ho-Tai, 2024 Resident Artist 

“PlatteForum was one of the best artistic experiences I have had in Denver. The amount of support the staff and interns were able to provide was such a restorative experience. This organization is actually doing the work of supporting artists, and growing a new generation of powerful young artists and activists.” - Kenzie Sitterud, 2023 Resident Artist

“The time I spent with the youth interns as a Resident at PlatteForum really inspired me to view my practice through the lens of youth. We were able to examine those topics that moved all of us individually and shared those passions with the group. I highly recommend this residency to any artist as a unique opportunity to engage with the future art community of Denver.” - Jennifer Maravillas Bell, 2022 Resident Artist

Application Requirements

1. Artist Statement: Briefly talk about your practice, its ideas, intentions, and the larger issues that frame your work in today’s world. Please articulate how this residency might positively impact your goals as an artist. (1000 character limit including spaces)

2. Residency Statement: Describe the work you might create for this residency, how you envision working with the youth within your creative practice, and what social justice topic(s) you might address. (1000 character limit including spaces)

3. Resume/CV

4. Work Samples: Please share 8-10 work/media samples. (Literary artists may upload a file through form question #4. All other artists should submit through "my portfolio" > "choose work samples")

Eligibility Criteria

The Artist Residency program is open to artists in all genres and disciplines. Applications from established professional artists, emerging artists, and graduate students are welcome. We encourage local, national, and international artists to apply. Former Resident Artists may apply again after a three-year waiting period. For example, a Resident Artist from the 2022-23 season is not eligible to apply until the 2025-26 season).