The WORTHLESSSTUDIOS Photographer in Residence program is a unique 1 month long photography residency taking place inside a mobile darkroom Airstream trailer. Since 2019, the Airstream trailer has traveled the nation to serve as a darkroom and community resource for keeping analog photography alive and thriving. Unlike other residencies that require artists to travel to them, this residency brings the facilities to you!

This residency expands on WORTHLESSSTUDIOS’ comprehensive approach to helping artists realize their creative visions while ensuring they have resources to advance their skills and careers. This program provides support for artists working in a photography based artistic practice that relies heavily on access to a darkroom facility.

 

Applications are received and reviewed on a rolling basis. This portal does not allow you to save your work so please begin the application when all your responses and materials are already compiled. Preview the application here.

 

DETAILS

  • Who: Emerging photographers looking to utilize a private darkroom facility to enhance their practice and advance their body of work

  • Where: Anywhere within a 150 miles or 3 hour drive from Brooklyn, NY

  • When: October 2024 - June 2026

Eligibility

  • A least 3 years of darkroom training and/or professional darkroom use

  • Exhibits use and need of darkroom facility

  • Project or goal requires close proximity of darkroom to home or a specific site within a 3 hour drive from Brooklyn, NY

  • Can spend minimum of 20 hours/week in darkroom

What we offer

  • Access to Airstream Darkroom for 4-6 weeks

  • $1,500 Artist Stipend

  • 5 Rolls of 35mm B&W Film

  • Darkroom Chemistry

  • 100 sheets 8x10 Photo Paper

  • Sponsored by Brooklyn PrintWorks

    • High-end film scanning

    • Hands-on digital printing introduction

What artists MUST contribute

  • In an effort to push you deeper into your practice and maximize your use of the darkroom resource, this residency requests a minimum of 20 hours/week in the Airstream.

  • Deliverables of 10 original photographs during your time in residency that document yourself, your time in residency, the Airstream and the Airstream situated in its surrounding environment.

  • Collaborative production in an open studio event or a single public program. (i.e community photowalk, youth darkroom tutorial, local artist photography critique)

  • Video and written testimonial about your experience in the residency to be published on WORTHLESSSTUDIOS’ website.

 
 

Resident Testimonials

We are very fortunate to have had enthusiastic and disciplined photographers take up residency to inaugurate this iteration of our analog photography programming. Resident Photographers spent day after day in the Airstream Darkroom creating new works, experimenting, and deepening their skills.

 

A Mobile Darkroom

A unique offering of this residency is the mobile darkroom, which is housed in a purpose-built 1973 Airstream. We tow the darkroom to our resident photographers so they can have ease of access near home or in a specific site or community that they wish to document or be within as part of their process.

 

THE AIRSTREAM ARCHIVE

Our residency requires resident photographers to add their original photographs to the growing archive of the program’s central component - the Airstream!