10 Year Anniversary of the Studios at MASS MoCA!
We’re thrilled to announce a major milestone: the 10-year anniversary of the Studios at MASS MoCA residency program!
Since opening its doors in October 2015, the Studios has had the honor of hosting over 1,100 artists from across the globe for self-directed residencies on MASS MoCA’s expansive and energetic campus. These residencies provide essential time, space, and individualized support for artists to develop new work and ideas, with our campus being a living source of research and inspiration.
Learn more about the transformative experience of being immersed at MASS MoCA in this video featuring some of our incredible alumni, staff, and community:
Throughout October, we will be sharing fun facts and major milestones across the years at the Studios at MASS MoCA on our Instagram. And we will be updating this webpage throughout the month from stories and testimonials from our alumni!
Are you an alumni of the Studios? We want to hear from you! Get in touch at studios@massmoca.org.
Alumni Testimonials celebrating our 10 Year Anniversary:
Kate Fauvell, 2015 Studios alum
“Having a residency at MASS MoCA shifted my whole way of working and made a huge impact on my career. I was at the very beginning of being a full time artist. I had very recently given up all other day work. This residency supported my exploration of new work and a new way of working while also providing information on how to run the business side of my art practice.
I was so inspired by the scale and space of the museum for the first time I began working at an incredibly large scale, using my own photos I began creating 10 x 8 foot canvases and I have never gone back.
I can truly thank my time at MASS MoCA for pushing my work in such a tremendous way. My residency truly changed my life in the most tremendous way. I am forever grateful.”
Blake Brasher, 2015 & 2019 Studios Alum
“I was thrilled to be included in the first cohort of artists to experience the Studios at MASS MoCA residency program! It made me feel like I was making real progress in my career as an artist, and it really cemented my love of MASS MoCA as an institution. But more important than all of that, the time at Studios was game changing for me.
The body of work I developed in my first residency was a true breakthrough for me, and it resonated in my studio practice for several years. The ideas I was able to develop in that program let to a huge body of successful work. My second residency coincided with the couple months before the birth of my first son. I haven’t had the chance to do another residency since, and am so grateful for the opportunity to have the experience I had.”
Yorgos Maraziotis, 2016 Studios Alum
“I am a practicing artist based in Antwerp, Belgium making installation art and site-specific artistic research.
I had the chance to witness the cultural impact that the Studios started having in North Adams and the Berkshires.
{During my residency], I met some very active US artists and started a valuable friendship and artistic collaboration with the NY based artist Karen Y. Chan.”
Jude Griebel, 2017 Studios alum
“My residency provided the time to conduct material experiments for a public artwork that was created for the City of Jyväskylä, Finland, in 2017. Studio experiments were interspersed with regular walks through the gallery exhibitions, time spent with my cohort and quiet time for research that the setting of North Adams provided.
My time at the Studios at MASS MoCA resulted in numerous friendships that have been sustained through visits and correspondence (after almost a decade) as well as follow-up studio visits and conversations with MASS MoCA staff.”
Nick Satinover, 2017 Studios Alum
“The residency offered space and time to be totally engrossed in the making of art and the experience of the MASS MoCA galleries. I have attended several residencies, but the linking of making with daily museum attendance was new and inspiring. I had specifically sought out time in North Adams in order to examine the artistic interventions and preservation of the industrial spaces and found my time to be full of beautiful contrasting experiences. This rich environment allowed me to build specific works that would not have been possible without on the ground research and reaction. I have continued to examine these ideas in my practice since 2017.
Since my residency I have used my resources within my institution to procure a Risograph printer and have collaborated with several artists across the US on zine and poster projects. I have attended other residencies and have a full spring of travel to produce a new body of work for exhibit in Summer of 2026.”
Christine Kelly, 2017 Studios Alum
“The residency came at a major crossroads for me creatively, personally, and professionally. I was between jobs, learning a new artistic medium, and had just relocated. I think of it as a launch into a new life. I applied as a poet, but had a surprising urge to make embroideries during my time there. My writing career has come a very long way since then, but I took the embroidery practice along with me and return to it in moments when I need a pause from writing.
I ended up working for the Williams College art history grad program and I live in North Adams! My first full-length book came out earlier in 2025 and I embarked on a full reading tour; it felt like a mega debut. I have never had so much institutional and creative support as I have this year and I can't wait to see where this momentum takes me. I really feel like December of 2017 at Assets for Artists was the start of my new path forward.”
Daniel Tucker, 2019 Studios Alum
“I was a part of a unique funded residency for faculty who teach professional practices. It was really exciting to have a shared language of pedagogy to connect with one another but also to be able to make our own work and share that also. As a document of our time, I shot a little video with everyone about going back to school called Art School FAQ.
In the studio, it was a generative time for me where I started work on a new project that was completely open ended where I collected quotes that used the phrasing ‘We Are All (fill in the blank) Now’ from headlines and book titles, then used those as prompts for drawings. I made 50 of them at MASS MoCA and made another 70 in subsequent years. In 2022 my book "We Are All ….. Now Drawing on Strategic Universalism" which started at the residency was released by Set Margins press in the Netherlands.
Vesna Jovanovic, 2019 & 2023 Studios alum
“The morning after I arrived, I woke up in a daze to casually open the blinds in astonishment at the huge Martin Puryear sculpture shining in the sunlight across the street from my bedroom window. In that moment I understood that the Studios at MASS MoCA was a completely immersive experience that would leave a lasting impression on my work and thinking.
The studio visits and conversations cultivated at the Studios at MASS MoCA continue to influence my work. I still keep in touch with several people I met at the residency, and I think about them often.
opel the development of my work, which I am exhibiting in four solo exhibitions in 2025. I believe that my work would not be where it is now without the influence of the Studios at MASS MoCA.”