LOS ANGELES, CA.- This fall, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) launches an Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program, a major new initiative created to further the museum’s ongoing commitment to directly support artists. The AIR will also expand and deepen ICA LA’s presence in the DTLA Arts District—a neighborhood where artists have lived and worked for decades. The program will focus on artists working in Los Angeles—a recognized cultural capital and a city with a vibrant and revered history of nurturing and developing the careers of artists, which has in recent years become a challenging landscape for artists to develop and sustain a livelihood and artistic career because of the increasing cost of living. We are thrilled to announce that after a nominations and application process, ICA LA has selected its inaugural cohort of artists: Mohammad Tayyeb, Julie Tolentino, and Hwa Records.

According to Executive Director Anne Ellegood, “Throughout ICA LA’s strategic planning process, we continually asked ourselves how we could deepen our support for artists and starting an artist residency became a top priority. I am thrilled that we are able to launch the AIR program to provide direct and impactful support to local artists and to contribute to keeping artists in the Arts District, a neighborhood named in their honor. We are deeply grateful to our funders and partners—the Getty, Rauschenberg Foundation, AvalonBay Communities, and Griffin Capital—for their enduring generosity, which has made the residency program possible. Threaded throughout our vision for ICA LA’s future is our devoted advocacy for artists and ongoing efforts to prioritize artists’ ideas, empathy, and creativity as essential tools for broader social impact. ICA LA’s AIR is exactly the type of artist-centered, mission-driven work that enhances the museum’s capacity to cultivate community and be a space to gather, learn, and transform."

ICA LA’s AIR provides artists with free dedicated studio space for a year; a generous $25,000 honorarium; a stipend for materials, research, and production; and ample opportunities to collaborate with ICA LA staff, supporters, and publics. The studios are located adjacent to ICA LA’s building on the back side of the AVA Arts District, a 475-unit residential and retail development on Industrial Street. This AIR program not only provides working space for artists to create, but is singular among LA artist residencies as a residency embedded in the institution, inviting artists to access ICA LA's building, resources, staff, and community partners; to contribute to the museum’s public programming; and to participate in some of ICA LA’s advisory and governance gatherings. There are few residency programs in Los Angeles, especially those that support local artists. ICA LA’s AIR will be one of the most significant artist residency programs in a contemporary art museum on the West Coast and will contribute meaningfully to ICA LA's efforts to ensure that LA remains a city of artists well into the future.

Over the years, ICA LA’s program has maintained a sustained dedication to celebrating the emerging, the overlooked, and the marginalized voices of contemporary art and culture whose expansive practices often elude and resist the conventional limitations of art history and contemporary art discourse. Embracing this history, ICA LA’s AIR program is multi-disciplinary and multi-generational, supporting the work of both emerging artists and those who are more established in their careers, but who lack the resources of time, studio space, and community and would be energized by the opportunity to be in dynamic relation with an institution like ICA LA. Working in and across the mediums of performance, video, sound, sculpture, works on paper, workshops, and healing practices, for artists Mohammad Tayyeb, Julie Tolentino, and Hwa Records, the invitation to be in residence at ICA LA marks an unparalleled and singular opportunity at pivotal junctures in their respective practices. As Tayyeb reflects, “ICA LA’s AIR Program feels like a received prayer—a pause between fights and a chance to bring many of my ideas into the world. I’m deeply grateful to ICA LA and everyone who made this possible.”

The artists were selected through a nominations process in which ICA LA invited respected artists, curators, and cultural leaders from Los Angeles to nominate artists to apply for the program. Nominators included: Andrea Bowers (Artist, Professor at Otis College of Art and Design); Suzy Halajian (Executive Director, JOAN Los Angeles); Essence Harden (Independent Curator); Michael Ned Holte (Director of Program in Art at California Institute of the Arts); Anna Sew Hoy (Artist, Associate Professor at UCLA); Ellie Lee (Executive Director, Equitable Vitrines); Marvella Muro (Program Manager, Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture); Selene Preciado (Curator and Director of Programs, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions); Cielo Saucedo (Artist); and Samuel Vasquez (Director, Performance Art Museum).

Reviewed by ICA LA’s Curatorial Leadership team—including Executive Director Anne Ellegood, Director of Learning & Engagement Asuka Hisa, and Senior Curator Amanda Sroka—artist applications were evaluated and artists selected based on their proposed use of the AIR studio space, resources, and time, and how those efforts further ICA LA’s mission and core values of gathering, learning, and transformation.

“As a non-collecting contemporary art museum, working with living artists in varying capacities is integral to ICA LA’s mission,” says Sroka. “Since our founding as the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 1988, artists have continuously played a guiding role in the formation of our identity and our future, not only as the focus of our program, but also as essential participants in museum leadership at the levels of the Board of Directors, Artist Advisory Council, and museum staff. The AIR continues in this legacy, affirming the vital contributions of artists in shaping how to be a stronger, better, and more responsive institution, while allowing ICA LA to further support an urgent need within the artist community of our city.”

Through the AIR, together with the soon-to-launch expanded Outdoor Art Program and other initiatives, ICA LA is moving beyond the museum walls to think more deeply about the Arts District neighborhood and its history, to host our growing community, reach new audiences, and remain an epicenter of experimentation, new ideas, and genuine engagement—for artists and audiences alike.