Residencies
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The MAH offers a unique research-based residency program in which artists, activists, scholars, and other practitioners draw from history to interpret contemporary themes.
Knowing our history is vital to moving forward. Together, contemporary art, heritage, and cultural expression have the capacity to help us better understand our current moment by creating experiential portals that connect the past, present, and future.
To do this, practitioners need access to research, materials, time, space, and financial support. The MAH’s residency program empowers interdisciplinary thinkers and makers—visual artists, writers, historians, ethnographers, folklorists, cultural anthropologists, and more—to pursue current or new projects of their design during a three- to six-month residency.
During their time with the museum, residents can make full use of the MAH’s resources and exhibition platforms—whether indoors, outdoors, or online—with opportunities to share out, prototype, and solicit feedback. Our aim is to support a research-based process via a residency that contributes to the development of a concept or body of work connecting local history to broader themes of contemporary significance.
The program is currently invitation only. To learn more or express your interest in consideration for future residency opportunities, please contact Marla Novo at marla@santacruzmah.org.
Artists-in-Residence at Historic Evergreen Cemetery
The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (the MAH) hosts a 2026–2027 cohort of Artists-in-Residence at historic Evergreen Cemetery, one of only a few cemetery-based residencies in the country. The program highlights Evergreen’s aesthetic, educational, and historic significance, supporting contemporary artists in creating original, site-specific installations, performances, and programs that engage deeply with the cemetery’s history, environment, and community while honoring its dual role as both an active cemetery and a cultural landscape.
2026–2027 Artists-in-Residence
Gabriel Kittle Cervine
Gabriel Kittle Cervine is a Santa Cruz-based poet and community organizer whose post-genre work draws from hip hop, punk rock, and poetic traditions. During the residency, Kittle-Cervine will publish a poetry anthology inspired by Evergreen's living and dead, accompanied by a live community poetry event at the cemetery.
Elizabeth Birnbaum
Elizabeth Birnbaum is a Santa Cruz–based photographer, curator, and founder of The Curated Feast. Her background spans photography, cultural projects, and food-based storytelling. She will develop Picnic of Memory, a site-specific picnic-walk event at Evergreen Cemetery.
Amaya
Amaya is a folk herbalist, educator, and community-rooted facilitator from Santa Cruz. During her residency, she will create Ancestral Grounds: Altars for Evergreen, a site-specific new media installation that centers ancestral veneration, land relationships, and cultural memory.
Sean Noyce
Sean Noyce is a designer, creative director, and visual storyteller who works across print, digital, and multimedia projects. During his residency, he will create The Shadow Path, an experiential audio-video installation that reimagines stories of those buried at Evergreen Cemetery through speculative narrative.
Visit the MAH Archives
Search historical documents, photographs, images, and other artifacts related to Santa Cruz County.