Roman J. Witt Residency Call For Proposals
On behalf of the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design and the Museum of Art (UMMA), we invite you to apply for the 2025 – 2026 Roman Witt Residency, specially themed to explore the upcoming United States Semiquincentennial (2026). We especially encourage social practice, performing, and performance artists with an interest in issues of national identity, commemorative practices and memory, and the history and future of the United States, to apply.
The mission of the Roman J. Witt Residency Program is to support an artist in the production of new work in association with the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design. The program awards one residency per academic year to a visiting artist/designer to create new work at the school while engaging the university community. This will be the fourth iteration of the Witt Residency that is held in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) – previous artists Zafos Xagorias (2018), Courtney McLellan (2020), and Machine Dazzle (2024) also featured performance and/or social practice activations extensively in their work. The selected artist will work with partners at the Museum of Art and the Witt Residency to conceptualize, design, mount and produce a performance, activation, or intervention in the Museum of Art’s Lizzie and Jonathan Tish Apse in the Fall of 2026.
During the Witt Residency, it is expected that the resident actively engages with the Stamps and UMMA community. To this end, a portion of the resident’s time at the university will be spent in direct interaction with students and faculty. Possibilities for interactions include but are not limited to: students working directly with the resident on artistic production; students interviewing resident; students observing resident’s process; resident dialoguing with students and faculty both in and outside of classes; resident providing critiques of student work; resident giving public talks/lectures/workshops; resident hosting open studio hours.
2025 – 2026 Witt Residency Timeline
Dates to be mutually agreed upon between resident and hosts.
Spring 2025
- Resident site visit #1 to the University of Michigan with coordinated orientations to Stamps School of Art & Design, UMMA, and (if appropriate) other campus collaborators
Fall 2025
- Resident site visit #2 for continued research and preliminary scoping of project
Winter 2026
- Scope of project finalized
- Creative residency during Winter term / student engagement
Fall 2026
- Production residency to mount project
- Project is realized during the Fall term
- Artist lecture/presentation in the Penny Stamps Speaker Series
Guidelines for Witt Residency Proposals
Eligibility
The Witt Residency is open to both established and emerging artists/designers. The Witt residency provides students an alternative learning opportunity to engage with practicing artists/designers who can make use of resources across campus. Therefore, the ideal candidate must value collaboration, have good social and communication skills, and be interested in generating creative partnerships across disciplines. The goal of the Witt Residency is to foster an atmosphere of inventive creative activity that extends throughout the University community.
In addition, for this iteration organized around the occasion of the Semiquincentennial, proposals should address how the applicant foresees engaging with the theme, as well as collaborating with partners and units on campus. Applicants should describe preliminary ideas for an engaging one-time or multiple-occasion performance, activation, or intervention.
Honorarium
Witt Residents receive an honorarium of $20,000 for twelve weeks in residence during the academic year (September 2025 through October 2026 may be non-continuous) and implementation of the project in Fall 2026. In addition to the honorarium, residents will be provided with housing, work space, and up to $5,000 research and development funding to support the creative process. Applications are encouraged from individuals as well as from artist collectives or creative teams, but please be advised that the resources listed above are finite, including the travel budget. If teams apply, the award will be shared between its members.
Production Budget and Site Specificity
UMMA will work collaboratively with the artist(s) to develop a production budget for the presentation of the performance/activation/intervention in Fall 2026. This budget will encompass various production expenses including technical elements and support, performers, and other materials, etc.
The culminating performance will be realized in UMMA’s historic Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Apse. This iconic space is the central nexus of Alumni Memorial Hall, which opened in 1910 as a memorial space for U‑M students and faculty who served in the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War; it eventually was repurposed to become the Museum of Art in 1946. A 2026 performance would therefore coincide with the 250th anniversary of America’s Independence, as well as the 80th anniversary of the Museum of Art.
The Tisch Apse is an approximately 6,400 square foot space measuring 45 by 143feet that terminates in a semicircular recess with a 40-foot skylight. The space does not have built-in technical theater capabilities, therefore all technical elements need to be sourced externally and will impact overall budget. The space is not well-suited for traditional proscenium-style projects. Competitive proposals will be site-sensitive and site-responsive, and make considered and intentional use of technical theatrical elements.
How To Apply
Applicants to the Witt Residency Program submit application materials and portfolios online through SlideRoom, an online portfolio review system.
Using SlideRoom, applicants will register, then:
- Complete application forms, including resume/CV and references.
- Upload media — this may include video, audio, and pdf files.
- Submit the processing fee
The SlideRoom application offers complete instructions for submitting work. Technical assistance is available at help.liaisonedu.com.
SlideRoom requires a nominal $15 application fee to offset the cost of media uploads and storage at the time of submission. The fee is paid by the applicant using a secure system via SlideRoom online as the final step in submitting the application. All funds go directly to SlideRoom, and not the Witt Residency, the Stamps School of Art & Design, or the University of Michigan.
More Information
Application Schedule
- Proposals due – December 15, 2024
All applications must be submitted by this deadline. - Selection committee review – January/February 2025The selection committee reviews materials and selects a shortlist of candidates for further review and from the shortlist selects a slate of finalists to present their projects and interview. Applicants will receive email notification, so please be sure to include your correct email address in your proposal.
- Shortlist candidate follow-up – February/March 2025
- Finalist presentations and interviews – March/April 2025
- Notification – May 2025
- Witt 2025 – 26 Public announcement — June 2025
Organizer Overviews
The Stamps School of Art & Design
The undergraduate and graduate programs in the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan each offer a non-media specific degree at the intersection of art and design. Free of traditional concentrations, the undergraduate program challenges students to define their own pathways and undertake robust, self-defined culminating projects in their final year. Our dynamic two-year MFA program integrates creative production with rigorous academic studies, international study with regional community engagement, and theoretical grounding with skills development. It is structured to expand the intellectual reach of creative work and utilize a comprehensive process for bringing creative work into the world.
Stamps has a current enrollment of 700 undergraduate and 24 graduate students. Forty-one full-time faculty, a cohort of part-time faculty, and a strong administrative and technical staff to support the School’s programs. Additional information about the School and its programs is available at stamps.umich.edu.
UMMA (The University of Michigan Museum of Art)
The collection, display, and study of art are woven through the 200-year history of the University of Michigan (U‑M); UMMA was formally established in 1946 as the primary site for engagement with art on campus. The Museum presents nearly a dozen exhibitions and more than 900 programs and events each year, which serve a broad regional audience comprising 240,000+ on-site annual visitors — including 40,000who participate in programming — and 200,000+ online. UMMA is always free and fully accessible — encouraging and welcoming the participation of all.
The Museum’s collections feature over 21,000 objects and represent more than three millennia of global art-making. Artworks are displayed and interpreted in expansive galleries for American, European, and Modern & Contemporary art, as well as galleries dedicated to art from Africa, China, Japan, Korea, and South and Southeast Asia. UMMA was named the number one public university museum in2016 and has been recognized in national media, with awards from the American Alliance of Museums, and enthusiastic feedback from visitors.
UMMA seeks to re-envision the role of a university art museum in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Museum is committed to anti-racism and is proactively engaged with the most relevant social and cultural questions of our time — researching its collections to recalibrate past practices with today’s ethical standards, activating civic engagement and democracy, challenging conventions of encyclopedism, and acknowledging and confronting structural racism. UMMA is collaborating with communities and artists that have been underrepresented in the arts and developing exhibitions that advance our understanding of art and creativity and provide the materials and spaces for critical reflection. UMMA programs engage our diverse publics, drive multidisciplinary dialogue, inspire and extend opportunities for learning, and offer deep connections between artists, scholars, and communities.
Facilities
The Stamps School’s facilities are geographically distributed in Ann Arbor and Detroit. The main facility is located on the University’s North Campus, and includes well-equipped media studios for drawing, painting, printmaking (lithography and intaglio), clay, wood, fibers, hot metals (welding, casting, brazing), cold metals (machine tools), video, and photography (large and small format printers), and a wide variety of digital fabrication tools. The school also maintains faculty/graduate studio facilities off-campus at 1919 Green Rd, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. This 33,000 square foot facility accommodates all of the school’s faculty and graduate students in one building, with 66 private studios, large, shared working and meeting spaces, wood, metal and multi-purpose shops and a digital media studio.
Engagement with the extensive scholarly, human, and technical resources of the University of Michigan is encouraged and facilitated. Comprised of 19 schools and colleges, Michigan is one of the world’s foremost public research universities. Current enrollment on the Ann Arbor campus totals 43,651 graduate and undergraduate students. Additional information about the University is available at umich.edu.
Location
Ann Arbor, located 40 miles west of Detroit on the Huron River, is an intellectually and culturally rich community, with a current population of 117,082. Additional information about Ann Arbor is available at annarbor.org.
Contact Information
Address: Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, 2000 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 – 2069
Application Portal
Email: chrissti@umich.edu
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