Artist Residency Program
The application deadline for the 2023 residency season has passed.
Overview
The Anderson Center at Tower View provides residencies of two to four weeks’ duration from May through October each year to enable artists, writers, musicians, and performers of exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishment to create, advance, or complete work. There are typically 5 residents at the Anderson Center at a time, and the organization hosts approximately 35-40 residents each year.
The program is one of the largest of its kind in the Upper Midwest. Since the Center opened in 1995, over 800 artists from 45 states and 40 countries have participated in the program. Residents have come from countries including Argentina, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, England, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, and Uganda.
Residencies begin on the 1st of each month and end on the second to last day of each month. If a residency is for two weeks, it will begin on the 1st or 16-17th of each month, and end on the 14-15th or second to last day of the month. There is no charge for the residency, and all food is provided. Outside of the Emerging Artist, Deaf Artists, & Public Artist programs, additional funding is not available at this time. Residents must arrange for their own transportation to the center, or to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, or to the train station in Red Wing.
The Anderson Center at Tower View's Residency Program was established by a working poet to support other artists and continues to be led by administrative staff with hands-on experience in the creative process. The Anderson Center trusts artists to best use their time to benefit their own work and reach their own goals. The expectation is that the program's cohort model and distinctive setting, along with the gift of time and space, generates significant advancements in residents' work.
As an interdisciplinary arts organization, the Anderson Center embraces artists who are diverse in every way. Since its inception, the organization has intentionally worked with artists representing a wide range of disciplines, with the belief that the exchange of ideas is generative. The residency program supports artists from around the world, representing a wide range of cultures, races, sexual identities and genders. The Center intentionally works to make space for people and ideas to comfortably come together and operates with a spirit of welcome for all.
For participating artists, the Residency Program creates connections within artist cohorts, as well as with other creatives and community members in Red Wing. The goal is that these relationships outlast the duration of the residency visit. The organization believes that the environment and resources of Tower View, along with fellowship and an exchange of ideas across disciplines, generates inspiration and new directions for the work artists create while in residence.
Location
The Anderson Center campus consists of 350 acres of the historic Tower View Estate, built by Dr. Alexander Pierce Anderson between 1915 and 1921, on the western edge of Red Wing, Minnesota. The estate’s original buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Center features a large sculpture garden, and is adjacent to the Cannon Valley Bike Trail, a 20-mile biking and walking trail that runs from Cannon Falls to Red Wing.
The Center is approximately 45 minutes southeast of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and 5 minutes northwest of the small but charming town of Red Wing. Transportation is provided between the Center and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport (MSP) on the first and last day of residencies only. Residents who choose to drive will have access to private parking on the property. Residents without cars can either use one of the Center bicycles to ride into town (about 5 miles) or, often, can get a ride in with another resident.
The community of Red Wing, Minn., (pop. 16,000) is nestled amidst the scenic bluffs of the upper Mississippi River. The town is settled on the ancestral homelands of the Mdewakanton & Wahpekute bands of the Dakota people. The City of Red Wing is named after Tatanka Mani (Walking Buffalo), a leader of the Mdewakanton Dakota in the upper Mississippi Valley who wore a ceremonial swan’s wing dyed in brilliant red. In 1815, Tatanka Mani and his people moved their village south to a place they called Khemnichan (Hill, Wood, & Water) in present-day downtown Red Wing. Euro-American immigrants who met him as they advanced into the region in the early nineteenth century came to know him and his village as “Red Wing.”
Since its settlement and eventual incorporation in 1857, Red Wing established itself as a center for agriculture, industry, tourism, medical care, technology, and the arts. The Red Wing Shoe Company and its iconic brands, in particular, continue to have a significant impact on the community’s economic, business, and community development climates. Natural resources abound with Red Wing's riverfront, winding paths through the majestic bluffs, bike trails, and 35 city parks. The Prairie Island Indian Community is located northwest of the city. Frontenac State Park is to the southeast on Lake Pepin. Minnesota State College Southeast Technical’s Red Wing campus is known for its string and brass instrument repair programs. The MN Dept. of Corrections also operates a large juvenile residential facility in Red Wing.
Other amenities include a destination bakery, a chocolate shop, coffee shops, restaurants, the flagship Red Wing Shoe Company store, Goodhue County Historical Society Museum, the Red Wing Stoneware & Pottery store, the Pottery Museum of Red Wing, a Duluth Trading store, the Red Wing Marine Museum, a Target, several pharmacies, a plant nursery & garden center, a Mayo Health System Hospital, a small independent bookstore, and a public library (the Center has arranged for residents to have access to a library card for their month at the Center)
Other key community stakeholders include the historic Sheldon Theatre, Red Wing Arts, Red Wing YMCA, Rise Up Red Wing, Hispanic Outreach of Goodhue County, Red Wing Area Friends of Immigrants, Friends of the Bluffs, Artreach, Red Wing Artisan Collective, the Artist Sanctuary, Pier 55 Red Wing Area Seniors, Big Turn Music Festival, Red Wing AAUW, Red Wing Environmental Learning Center, Red Wing Girl Scouts, Red Wing Public Schools, Tower View Alternative School, and Universal Music Center, as well as several City boards, commissions, and departments.
Community Engagement
Residents are asked to make a substantive contribution to the community while they are here. Each year, center residents visit schools, senior centers, civic organizations, adult and juvenile detention centers, and other arts institutions in Red Wing and its nearby rural communities, with over 3,000 people—from primary school children to senior citizens—benefiting from these community presentations, workshops, and classes. If you are accepted, once you confirm that you will be coming, Anderson Center staff will discuss possible engagement activities with you, and help coordinate your project.
Residents should expect to have cell phone access on the property, as well as Wi-Fi strong enough for video conferencing throughout the house. There is a printer provided to residents, and printing can also be done in the Anderson Center office. Wi-Fi is also available in visual art space in the North Studios. Residents should plan to bring any other technology they will need with them.
Programs
Since 2014 the Anderson Center at Tower View has offered such month-long residencies in alternating years to small groups of Deaf artists, including poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers, whose native or adoptive language is American Sign Language (ASL). Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Anderson Center's Deaf Artist Residency is the only program in the country that is Deaf-centric. It was developed with the goal of contributing to the creation of a network of Deaf culture-creators in Minnesota and the United States.
The Anderson Center’s Emerging Artist Residency Program offers month-long residency-fellowships to a cohort of early-career artists from Minnesota or one of the five boroughs of New York City. Thanks to support from the Jerome Foundation, the program offers a stipend & travel honorarium and provides early-career artists in need of focused time and dedicated space with an inspiring residency work environment that empowers them take risks, embrace challenges, and utilize unconventional approaches to problem-solving.
In 2021, the Anderson Center at Tower View launched the First Step Public Artist Residency Program, a month-long residency-fellowship for one public artist, cultural producer, or social practitioner living and working within the state of Minnesota to deepen their practice in storytelling, cultural arts organizing, and collaborative community engagement while serving as a catalyst for social action & relationship building in rural Red Wing, MN.
The Center also engages in artist exchange programs with the city of Salzburg, Austria, and with Red Wing's Sister City, Quzhou, China. The Salzburg Artist Exchange operates in cooperation with Stadt-Salzburg Artist-in-Residence Program and is open to emerging and mid-career Minnesota artists. Quzhou Artist Exchange partners with the Quzhou College of Technology and is only open to artists living in or around Red Wing. The Center also participates in annual scholarship programs with the MFA programs at The University of Minnesota and Pacific Lutheran University in Washington.
2023 General Artist Residency Program
The Anderson Center at Tower View's Artist Residency Program an opportunity for emerging, mid-career, and established artists working across all disciplines and based anywhere in the world. The program is interdisciplinary and the organization welcomes applications from a wide range of creative and intellectual genres, including those that don't fit neatly into one category.
Selected artists receive live/work space, fellowship & exchange within a 5-artist cohort, chef-prepared meals, and more. Application deadline was 12 p.m. Noon, Central Standard Time on Jan. 16, 2023. The selected artists, wait-list, and runners-up were notified by March 2, 2023. There is only one application deadline for open 2023 residency spots.
2023 Emerging Artist Residency Program
This program is an opportunity for early career / emerging artists living within the state of Minnesota or one of the five boroughs of New York City to participate in a supportive and inspiring residency environment that empowers them to take risks, embrace challenges, and utilize unconventional approaches to problem-solving.
Thanks to support from the Jerome Foundation, a month-long cohort of 5 artists will each receive a $625/week stipend, a travel honorarium, documentation support, and more. Application deadline was 12 p.m. Noon, Central Standard Time on Jan. 16, 2023. Selected artists, wait-list, and runners-up were notified by March 2, 2023.
2023 Salzburg Exchange Artist
Since 2008, the Anderson Center at Tower View has partnered with the City of Salzburg for an annual international artist exchange program open to a visual artist based in Minnesota. The program promotes cultural cooperation and is based on mutual exchange on equal terms.
Each July, the City of Salzburg provides a Minnesota visual artist with the opportunity to live and work at a guest studio in the Künstlerhaus building in Salzburg. In return, an artist from Salzburg has the opportunity to live and work at the Anderson Center's artist community.
The Participating Minnesota visual artist is responsible for their own travel costs to Salzburg and back. A €500 stipend for food is provided. Application deadline was 12 p.m. Noon, Central Standard Time on Jan. 16, 2023. Selected artist, wait-list, and runners-up were notified by March 2, 2023.
Accreditation
The Anderson Center at Tower View is proud to be a fully accredited member of the Artists Communities Alliance and RES ARTIS: International Association of Residential Art Centres.