Writer-in-Residence
Writing Space’s Writer-in-Residence program offers artists and designers dedicated time to develop and receive feedback on a writing project.
The project may take any form, including creative, critical, or history.
Residencies typically last four months.
The current term runs January-April 2026.
Applications for the Summer (May-August) 2026 term will open in February.
Laura Bernstein
Bernstein’s interdisciplinary practice incorporates pageantry, sculpture, stop-motion animation and installation to build theatrical characters and worlds that draw from the past–folktales, natural histories, and medieval illuminated manuscripts—to probe the present and imagine alternative futures. Her work aims to question how systems of classification shape behavior, how the observer and the observed, human and animal, are defined and redefined within the context of a rapidly changing climate.
During the residency, Laura will develop a script for a performance-lecture and animation that weaves together medieval fables about women and power. She will use speculative fiction to expand the inner lives of the characters featured within art historical objects such as ivory boxes, chalices, aquamanilia, and etchings. The project will also explore how these various reproductions of objects and works of art functioned like early memes, proliferating fantastical and entertaining narratives while revealing the fears, anxieties and beliefs of the time.
_______________________________________
Phyllis riding Aristotle, 2024, papier-mâché, paperclay, cardboard, acrylic paint, alcohol ink, fabric, ribbon, aluminum wire, wire mesh, steel pipes, wood, shards of mirrored glass, Selfie stick, iphone with stop-motion animation 3:10 (color, sound) 70 x 30 x 75 ins.