Current Residents
Open Call
Past Residents
About
The LES Studio Program is a three or six month residency program open to underrepresented, emerging and mid-career professional working artists. Founded in 2003, the LES Studio Program underscores AAI’s belief that the arts and individual artists are essential to the culture, history and future of the Lower East Side community. Artists of all disciplines – painting, photography, sculpture, video, installation, new media – are considered for fully-funded studio space to produce new work and make use of resources needed to support their creative practice. The residency offers 24-hour studio access, the opportunity to present work to curators and critics through AAI-organized studio visits, a curated exhibition at Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space and exposure to a broadened general audience during bi-annual Open Studios. Working within the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, a large multi-purpose studio building, residency participants will also have the opportunity to engage with other building artists, some new to the neighborhood and others having worked in the LES for several decades.
The LES Studio Program is supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.