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What Makes this event different?

This is an opportunity to live and work on a remote island in the largest freshwater lake in the world.

RABBIT ISLAND

Rabbit Island offers 91 acres of forest and sandstone located in Lake Superior, the largest body of freshwater in the world, located four miles east of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. The island is a unique wilderness environment that is home to a variety of flora and fauna including red maples, large white pines, nesting birds, bald eagles, salamanders, and more. Native salmon and trout swim in the waters surrounding the island. The weather can vary day-to-day, creating humbling experiences and beautiful vistas. A conservation easement insures that the island’s ecosystem will remain protected forever.

WHO CAN APPLY

The Rabbit Island Residency is open to applicants from around the world. Collaborative groups of 2-3 people may also apply. Applicants must be 21 or older. The residency is open to visual artists of all disciplines, as well as poets, writers, designers, architects, musicians, composers, filmmakers, and choreographers. We are supportive of scientific research on the island and encourage collaborative art and science proposals, but the majority of our funding comes from arts funding agencies. We are not able to provide funding for scientific members of a collaborative proposal. Scientific members of any collaborative proposal should secure separate funding in addition to the resources available from the Rabbit Island Residency. Due to the nature and location of the island, the residency is not handicap accessible and unable to accommodate applicants with mobility issues.

THE RABBIT ISLAND RESIDENCY

The residency was founded by Robert Gorski and Andrew Ranville in 2010. The Rabbit Island Residency is a platform to investigate, challenge and expand creative practices in a remote environment. By living and working on Rabbit Island artist residents engage directly with the landscape and respond to notions of ecology, conservation, sustainability, and resilience. Rooted in the belief that the intelligent organization and celebration of wild spaces is the most civilized thing we can value as society, the residency reflects on the insights provided by the hundreds of years of settlement and division of land. The island, an unsettled and undivided space, enables residents to pursue research and develop work related to these ideas, creating interpretations, and even solutions.

Each summer approximately three to four supported residencies are awarded (mid-June until late-September). Selected applicants receive an unrestricted honorarium which they can use to cover travel expenses, facilitate research, and for materials. Residents may also be awarded an exhibition at the DeVos Art Museum in Marquette, Michigan, located two and a half hours from the island. A publication featuring work and research of the awarded residents is produced annually in partnership with the museum.

 

HOW TO APPLY