Residencies

Eastern Edge’s Studio hosts several artist residencies each year. Located in a creative hub set right on the harbour, our open-concept studio functions as an art studio, office space, event venue, and public arts library. Our island location provides a chance for artists to engage with our beautiful landscape, the unique culture of Newfoundland & Labrador, and our vibrant St. John’s art community.

Typically lasting 6 weeks in duration, Eastern Edge residencies are artist-driven opportunities that allow artists time and space to develop their creative projects. Residencies are programmed through an annual call for submissions.

Current Residencies

Stay tuned!

Upcoming Residencies

Sun Forest

February 6 – March 21, 2026

The project focuses on the creation of speculative IBPOC bio-armour for radical resistance and healing through multi-species connections and embodied practices of care. Incorporating biomaterials and living microorganic cultures within speculative body armour, the work transfigures forces and human-centric timelines of violence into conditions that can propagate equity and regeneration, and push for modes of collective and radical future imaginings. Developing a transdisciplinary installation using sculpture, performance, video, and new media, this project will continue to undergo change throughout the course of its installation, proposing symbiotic, evolving modes of being that can liberate and resist systems of racialized violence and techno-ecological harm.

Rae Swan

April 10 – May 23, 2026

Inspired by Susan Sontag’s essays on photography, I am interested in actively engaging with the camera in a way that blurs the boundaries between the natural world and the voyeur’s world. Today’s voyeur sees the world through a screen, through a glass box, a mirror world. Yet the physical world beyond it exists in a separate space, free of bounds. The project I will be creating is a series of videos and photographs that explore and challenge the relationship we have to these realities. During this residency I will be exploring a new and unfamiliar landscape through the idea of equal relationship and play. Beginning the project without the camera is crucial to attempting decolonial lens based work. After spending time with the land, I will venture out again and bring the camera with me, only taking photos and videos when there feels like consent from the land. This creates a trusting relationship with the land and works with the belief that the natural world has its own autonomy in relationships.

The videos each come in two parts. One where the video camera sits on a tripod, taking in the landscape, still, like a finished painting – The voyeur’s perspective. The second video becomes unstill and instead; a performance. With the camera affixed to my body, I’ll explore the landscape so the camera experiences the landscape in an intimate and full-bodied way. I want to know How does the world change when we change the way we look at it? By exploring the unfamiliar landscapes of Newfoudland and Labrador and connecting with local communities about land stewardship I hope to create a project that inspires discourse about connected and conscious art making with and about the land.

Jem Woolidge

June 12 – July 25, 2026

Jem Woolidge will spend his residency developing a collection of garments for musicians, inspired by the camp aesthetics of performance spectacles and stagewear, and in collaboration with local performers. Inspired by designers like Bob Mackie describing Elton John as a ‘Male Showgirl’, his costume methodology is inherently queer, colorful, silly, and imagery-based. He is interested in the ways in which garments can disarm both the wearer and the viewer, and create a more permissive environment to perform and be an audience in.

“I was fascinated by the social permissiveness of stage performance. You can ‘get away with’ wearing anything under the prerequisite of performance, including draggy, campy, tacky garments. In contexts where dressing in a gender nonconforming manner in a casual setting would potentially cause a stir, stage performance is an outlet where things can go unquestioned. Historically, costume designers would dress their subjects in high camp, effeminate garments, and from Liberace to Twisted Sister – their oftentimes conservative fan bases would watch and applaud.”

Image credit: Griffin O’Toole

Past Residencies

2025

David Nasca

Shay Hucklebridge

Cat Bluemke & John Janigan-Mills

Let’s Play Americanotopia: a video game jazz performance

Residency Reflection from Cat & John

2024

Billy Gauthier (Spirit Song AiR)

Georgia Dawkin

Georgia Dawkin’s Artist Talk

Residency Reflection from Georgia Dawkin

Sylvan Hamburger

Artist Talk with Sylvan Hamburger

Residency Reflection from Sylvan Hamburger

m’lk

Dintho Workshop with m’lk

Residency Reflection from m’lk

Nadine Baldow

LANDSCAPE INVESTIGATION: Artist Talk with Nadine Baldow

Residency & Exhibition Reflection from Nadine Baldow

Megan Samms

Artforce NL x EE Workshop: Indigo Social with Megan Samms

Talk + Research Share with AiR Megan Samms

2023