​IN BRIEF

 

The Crow’s Nest, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University (JHU), will be providing up to three fully subsidized studio residencies from March-October 2024. The selected cohort of artists will work towards a group show themed around the public health and ecological challenge of extreme heat, particularly as it relates to urban heat and its impact on Baltimore communities.

 

The final artworks should engage the challenge of extreme heat, for example

 

• The impact of extreme heat on Baltimore communities, people, and ecosystems

• Its underlying causes, and potential measures to address the causes

• Solutions to mitigate the risks and protect people, plants, and animals

 

Any artistic medium able to safely be conducted at our studio is of interest to us (please see below for further information). The group show will be installed in September 2025. Artists should also be prepared to translate their studio work into a didactic, political, and/or educational broadsheet on the topic of extreme heat that will be distributed alongside the exhibition. 

 

Each artist will receive $3,300 in honoraria to complete the work and dedicated studio space at the Crow’s Nest art incubator in downtown Baltimore. Artists will also benefit from the opportunity to interact with JHU researchers, sit in on relevant lectures, meet public health professionals, and will have the opportunity to propose additional programming.

 

ARTIST REQUIREMENTS

 

• Participating artists are strongly encouraged to engage scientific data or concepts in their work, and to link their work to the lived experience of Baltimore communities. 

 

• Artists must be willing and able to pursue their artwork at the Crow’s Nest at least 10 hours a week while in residence. 

 

• Artists are encouraged to attend a small number of relevant lectures and workshops at JHU to expand their technical knowledge of extreme heat, its impacts, and responses to address it. 

 

• Artists are expected to share their preliminary ideas in the spring of 2025 at JHU and meet with students.  Artists will also be expected to present at the exhibition opening at the Crow’s Nest in the fall of 2025 and to participate in a retrospective panel event in the spring of 2026 (see timeline below).  

 

Artists may be at any point in their careers, though we have a particular desire to support emerging and underrepresented artists. Artists currently enrolled in a degree-seeking program are not eligible. It is recommended artists reside within an hour from downtown Baltimore to best be able to participate in the residency. There are no relocation funds, and the studios are purely work (not residential) spaces.

 

BACKGROUND: Why Extreme Heat?

 

Extreme heat is a rapidly-growing threat to public health in urban areas around the world, including Baltimore. Climate change, combined with the nature of urban spaces, is giving rise to dangerously high temperatures in many parts of our city, especially in "urban heat islands," where temperatures can be up to 10 degrees hotter than in suburban or rural areas. Combined with the effects of air pollution, extreme heat can be deadly, especially for the elderly, the isolated, those with underlying medical conditions, and those who work outdoors. Because historically marginalized communities are disproportionately exposed to air pollution and lack of tree cover, they are also at greatest risk from extreme heat.  

 

In Baltimore, the summer of 2024 was the second-warmest in three decades. At least 25 people died of heat-related causes in Maryland, including sanitation worker Ronald Silver. Nationally, at least 2,300 deaths were related to extreme heat, the highest number in 45 years of records. Given the trends in climate change, this threat will only continue to grow. The summer of 2025 is likely to again break heat records, and the need to prepare will become ever-more important.  

 

Some steps have been taken in response, but much more action is needed.  The Urban Trees Grant Program seeks to plant new trees in urban, historically underserved areas across Maryland, but not enough to provide heat relief quickly in key urban heat islands. In September, Maryland became the first East Coast state to adopt worker heat protections, but there is no federal heat standard yet. Other solutions, including affordable residential cooling, green and cool roofs, and better ways to check in on vulnerable people during heat waves have yet to be deployed on a large scale.

 

Greater public awareness of the threat of extreme heat in Baltimore is urgently needed, along with education about the risks and ways to mitigate them. Greater public understanding will result in pressure on government, corporate, and community leaders to adopt better solutions, faster. Artistic and cultural production can promote greater awareness and understanding, leading to action to protect people, plants, and animals from extreme heat. 

 

THE EXHIBIT

 

Fellows will create a group show consisting of new works of art (open to all media – painting, drawing, illustration, animation, video art, installation, photography, sculpture, mixed media, etc). Work will be produced through supported residencies at the Crow’s Nest art incubator and will involve close collaboration with researchers, professors, and students at JHU. 

 

Artists are also expected to produce at least one broadsheet, with printing costs covered by the Crow’s Nest. Artists have the option to make illustrative work that may translate into a broadsheet easily, or to use imagery/documentation from their work to produce a unique poster. A broadsheet should be educational, accessible, didactic, and political. This does not mean the gallery artwork has to or should be those things. 

 

ABOUT THE STUDIOS

 

The Crow’s Nest is a narrow, historic building at the heart of downtown. Unfortunately at this time our space is not wheelchair accessible. Access to all studios requires at least one flight of stairs in addition to the six steps at the front of the building. While it will be difficult and ultimately unlikely we will be able to provide full studio support to a wheelchair-bound artist, we still hope for these artists to apply. The other aspects of the fellowship – the honorarium, JHU workshops/classroom visits, etc., will remain unchanged even if an artist is physically unable to take advantage of the workspace. The Crow’s Nest will work with selected artists to provide studio visits and remote participation as necessary.

 

We are not interested in AI assisted artwork at this time due to ethical and environmental concerns. There are also a number of mediums we cannot support the creation of at our studio due to safety reasons:

 

• Any medium that generates unhealthy fumes– eg, oil painting, laser cutting, spray paint, blackroom photography. Our windows do not open.

• Any medium that would cause potential pests (artists planning to work with biological materials should provide a safety plan).

• We can only support up to one artist who works with an open flame and/or light welding. This artist must use the basement studio, which has a concrete floor.

• If you work in a potentially unsafe medium but can propose a safety plan amenable to Crow’s Nest staff, please do not be deterred from applying and simply fill out the optional safety plan question in our application.

 

TIMELINE

 

​​January 10: Open call for artists published 

 

​​February 24: Call for artists closes

 

​​February 28:  Selected cohort announced

 

​​Early March: Artists move into the Crow’s Nest. Meetings are arranged with JHU academics and public health practitioners. Artists will use the meetings to learn, gather information, and shape their thinking about the work and collaborations. 

 

​​Mid-March: Artists share their work-in–progress concepts at the JHU undergrad Sustainability Lab run by Prof. Jana Hana Kopelent-Rehak. (Mandatory visit)

 

​​Due March 24: Artists propose their final artworks. All three artists should be in agreement on the floorplan of the gallery, whether that means developing the space collectively, or dividing the space democratically between themselves. Crow’s Nest staff will mediate and make final determinations.

 

​​March 31: Crow’s Nest will send approvals or revisions if necessary. If needed, revised proposals are due April 4.

 

​​April - September - Collaboration and production phase; studio visits from collaborators as needed

 

​​August 22 – Broadsheet Designs due

 

​​September 2-5 - Install period

 

​​September 6/7 - Opening reception, which will coincide with the Crow’s Nest first anniversary celebration

 

​​September - October - Gallery programming throughout the exhibition period; Opportunities for additional artist-proposed programming.

 

​​November 8/9 - Exhibition ends; closing reception and closing artist talks 

 

​​Spring 2026 - Retrospective panel event​​​​​​

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APPLY HERE

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