Curators and writers: apply for the Pedantic Residency!

Pedantic Arts Residency Seeking Creatives for 2025–2026

The Pedantic Arts Residency (Pedantic) is seeking applicants for creatives and researchers to participate in the Summer 2025 and Winter 2026 terms. Entering its fourth year, Pedantic continues its mission of re-embracing the impact that education, study, and contemplation can have on artistic output by interconnecting creators, organizers, and critics. As the program seeks new residents whose practices engage visual arts, curation, and writing, this unique opportunity invites rich cross-disciplinary dialogue and collective, exploratory immersion within Pittsburgh’s artistic and cultural landscape.

Located in an artistic epicenter of Pittsburgh, residents will spend four weeks housed in a hybrid residential and commercial building in the bustling Garfield neighborhood. As opposed to the typical expectation of output in residency programs, Pedantic emphasizes the connections and conversations that occur while the residents share living quarters. Each Pedantic resident is paired with a Pittsburgh-based guide working in a similar field who will help connect the residents to relevant activities, resources, and local professional contacts.

In addition to residents for the sixth and seventh cohorts, Pedantic is seeking through the open call participants for the Pedantic Research Grant (The Grant). The Grant is a derivative program offering yet another means to be immersed within the vibrant communities of Pittsburgh. The Grant is an independent opportunity that invites visual artists, curators, and writers to conduct self-motivated and Pittsburgh-related research. Different from Pedantic residents, grantees have a solo, two-week-long experience at the Pedantic apartment to focus on their research. Previous grantees include artist Lena Chen (Summer 2023), a Los Angeles and Berlin based artist whose work addresses women’s identity, trauma, and intimacy; Eileen Maxson (Summer 2022), a Portland, OR based artist who uses humor to work through the viewfinder of personal and family experiences; Susy Bielak and Fred Schmalz (Summer 2024), a Chicago based collaborative art duo who mines social histories, texts, and archives to create installations and actions that reflect the gravity and strangeness of contemporary cities; and Patrick Sims (Summer 2024), a France based artist whose research and practice intersect through the use of masks, puppets, and machines.

Pedantic is co-organized by Headwater Media and Casey Droege Cultural Productions. Fiscal sponsorship has been provided by Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, a community development organization that, together with a second nonprofit, Friendship Development Associates, Inc., launched the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative in 1997 as a way to revitalize an ailing commercial district. Principal funding for previous iterations has been provided by The Fleischner Family Charitable Foundation and the Opportunity Fund.

Please visit the Pedantic website to learn more about this opportunity and to apply.

For more information, please contact:
Hannah Turpin, Pedantic Program Manager and CDCP Managing Director
hannah@caseydroege.com