Confronted with ecological urgency many artists are increasingly addressing environmental and place-based issues in their work. Place-based artist residencies can provide support to artists researchers and writers whose work engage and negotiate a land stewardship or performance of ecologicalethics. What then is the role of artist residencies in local land stewardship? How do artists challenge the public to reconsider their relationships with places? In this thesis I address these and other related questions through a case study of the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis Oregon focusing on the Crowley Creek Collaboration a multidisciplinary place-based residency project. This thesis examines the organizational dynamics of an artist residency and considers how a local community engages in a residency-initiated exploration of place.

http://www.artsadministration.org/thesis/exploring-the-role-of-artist-residencies-on-local-land-stewardship-a-case-study-of-the-sitka-center-for-art-and-ecology/