Saltwater Road Artist Residency was established in July of 2020 in Montgomery, Alabama, as a public humanities organization that intentionally creates investigative space for rigorous artistic exploration and practice-based research at the intersection of arts and justice in the American South
OUR APPROACH
Our Artist Residency programming centers ethnographic research through site-specific improvisational sound, movement, and performance responses, oral history interviews, and engaged performance programming with local community members and spaces.
Practice Based Research
To train and develop the next generation of artists and communities in the art form of performance Community building through the presentation of site-specific, ethnographic, and participatory arts-based programming.
Knowledge Production
To support the advancement of knowledge emerging from artistic and practice-based research for community development and social change.
Archiving the South
To preserve and archive historical and contemporary knowledge aligned with public-facing humanities and performance work that pushes the current cultural ways of knowing and offers innovation in aesthetic sensibilities
Engaged Praxis
Community building through the presentation of site-specific, ethnographic, and participatory arts-based programming.
The time spent with artists is highly intentional and led by each artists line of inquiry. We ensure that within our schedule we consistently included field visits to Africatown, and support site-specific performance devising and creative experimentation in response to specific research around the intersections of art and justice, and oral history interviews. The residency culminates in a closing ceremony and archiving of each artist's ethnographic research through their creative practice. Performance activities and public offerings occur in partnership with local community organizations and are open to the public.
An increasing number of studies report a marked increase in African Americans migrating out of northern cities like Chicago and Detroit, in a "reverse migration" back South. The long-term mission of Saltwater Road is to be one of the leading centers of performance and practice-based research in the American South. Saltwater Road Performance Institute is focused on expanding current cultural landscapes in the American South and bringing light and voice to the underrepresented region through performing arts training and programming. Our Artist Residency programming centers ethnographic research through site-specific improvisational sound, movement, and performance responses, oral history interviews, and engaged performance programming with local community members and spaces.
Join us in supporting the next generation of sound, movement, and performance based artists and scholars who are changing the world through their creative work.