Ballroom Marfa Art Fund
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Ballroom Sessions—The Farther Place

Ongoing

Venue

Marfa, Texas

Residency


Ballroom Sessions—The Farther Place supports artists and musicians to create new work. Past artists-in-residence included: Roberto Carlos Lange & Kristi Sword,  EJ Hill, Elle Pérez, Johanna Unzueta, Morgan Bassichis, Jesse Chun, Li(sa E.) Harris, and Guadalupe Maravilla. 

Through in-depth site visits, residencies, research, studio space, or production, artists can explore nascent ideas in their practice. Ballroom Sessions prompts questions like: How do artists think and make work in these times? How can an arts organization serve artists? What kind of support is most generous to artists and musicians right now, especially if they experiment between mediums and forms? How can Ballroom continue to commission timely work during the pandemic? 

Ballroom Sessions encourages cross-disciplinary processes, facilitates research of the culture and landscape of the region, and connects artists to local partners and experts. During and after these residencies, participating artists will present their new works to the public in several ways ranging from releasing music and film, audio lectures, interviews, and more, through Ballroom’s unique channels.

The “Farther Place” connotes not only a physically distant location but also a zone for experimentation. Through incubation and production, artists can go deeper into a farther place within their practices. Their ideas and artworks move out into the world beyond Far West Texas. As a point of inspiration Sun Ra conjures us to move beyond our (earthly) limits in his poem “The Farther”:

 

Get over into the spirit of things

Thus the movement is on. . . .

Ever moving toward

The farther place or the

Place of the farther. . .

 

Ballroom Sessions—The Farther Place is organized by Ballroom Marfa’s Music Curator Sarah Melendez and Curator Daisy Nam.