Creative Retreats

Curricula, Programming, Logistics

Creative Retreats are full day and weekend long magical adventures through Elsewhere’s unfolding world of things. They are open to students, collectives, community organizations and learning groups across disciplines and interests.

Retreats offer immersive residencies with tailored curricula that offer encounters with contemporary site-specific art practice in Elsewhere. Students work independently or in teams, prototyping site-specific concepts and designing projects using Elsewhere’s materials and responsive artist residency process. Retreats offer creative, hands-on learning through living, doing, and exchanging that builds group connectivity, communication, and collaboration.

During retreat students get a hands-on introduction to art processes at the museum and its creative processes through participation in a micro-residency to develop small independent projects that use the collection in non-permanent ways (photography, video, audio, writing, performance). Elsewhere works with each group leader to organize a project that meets the needs of the learning community while sharing new lifestyle models.

Retreats cost $150 per person per day+night, for up to 20 people, or $75/person for single day retreats. Includes meals, housing, curricula development, and program facilitation by an Elsewhere Director and staff. Typically groups arrive on a Friday and depart on Sunday for weekend adventures. Participants engage with Elsewhere’s collective network and receive special consideration for residencies and internship opportunities.

Topics of Past Creative Retreats Include:

  • Repair as contemporary art practice.

  • Event based curatorial production and performances.

  • Collaborative art processes and contemporary media production.

  • Improvised Instruments and sound art production at the museum.

Sample Schedule

Elsewhere Sample Retreat Agenda 2012 (DOC)

Day 1 (Thursday)

Welcome + Orientation | Tour, Dinner Commons, Campsite Curation

Day 2 (Friday)

Elsewhere Projects, Workshops, Explorations.

Themes include curatorial agency, new media, collaboration, non-profit public art, creative exchanges, storytelling via objects, social process, performative everyday life.

Projects are either based in new media (video, photo, sound) or collaborative installations guided by Elsewhere curators.

Day 3 (Saturday)

Brunch, Reflection, and Family Portrait