Leonardo at Djerassi | Leonardo/ISAST

Leonardo at Djerassi

Deadline: 
22 September 2025 to 15 November 2025
Organized by: 
Djerassi Resident Artists Program
City: 
Woodside, California
Country: 
United States of America
Leonardo Program: 
Leonardo at Djerassi

Leonardo@Djerassi 2026 Open Call for Residents

 

Applications Open: September 30, 2025

Deadline: October 31, 2025 Extended to Friday, November 14, 2025 ~ 11:59 PM PT.

Application fee: $55

Link to application page: https://djerassi.org/apply/application-guidelines/

 

The application cycle for next year’s Leonardo@Djerassi artist and scientist residency is now open. A collaboration between Leonardo/ISAST and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, this month-long residency offers a unique opportunity for artists whose work is driven by science and scientists engaged with the arts. Set in the stunning Santa Cruz Mountains, residents are free to experiment and work on their own projects in a community designed for cross-disciplinary discovery. Please check back on September 30 for full application details.

 

About Leonardo@Djerassi

Leonardo/ISAST and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (DRAP) collaborate on the annual Leonardo@Djerassi (formerly Scientific Delirium Madness) artist/scientist residency that brings together artists and scientists for a month-long retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains. During the course of the residency, artists working in a variety of media collaborate with scientists working in various disciplines to explore and transform the boundaries of art and science. Each year, distinguished scientists and forward-thinking artists are selected from hundreds of applicants and nominees to participate. Scientists selected must be involved in significant art-related research and/or be practicing a form of art and/or have original ideas on how to integrate aspects of art and science. This includes but is not limited to poetry, playwriting, fiction, creative non-fiction, choreography, music composition, media arts/filmmaking, painting, sculpture, photography, and installation art. Artists selected will have a track record of work driven by the influence of biology, chemistry, physics, math, environmental or agricultural science. A strong sense of play and experimentation is essential. This is not a product-based residency. Artists and scientists will be free to work on their own projects. Participants will be expected to be in-residence for the entirety of the session. Accommodations, food, and local transportation are provided. Residents will also be expected to interact with colleagues in differing fields, participate in a public forum during their stay and document their experiences for both academic and general audiences.

 

Application Details: 

Residencies are awarded competitively, at no cost, to national and international artists in the disciplines of choreography, literature, music composition, visual arts, media arts, technology and science.

We seek applications from emerging and mid-career artists, for whom appointments as resident artists may make a significant difference to their careers, as well as from established artists with national and/or international reputations. Applicants are evaluated by panels of arts professionals in each category.

Djerassi Resident Artists Program is designed as a retreat experience to pursue personal creative work and share collegial interaction within a small community of artists. In this spirit, residents are expected to commit themselves for the entire residency session they are awarded.

No shortened or partial residencies are offered and all session dates are based on the availability and sustainability of the program and are subject to change or cancellation.


Eligibility & Re-applications
National and international visual artists, composers, choreographers, media artists, writers, and scientists (for Leonardo@Djerassi) are eligible. Alumni must wait five seasons before re-applying for a return residency. Example: 2017 residents can re-apply for the 2022 residency season. Artists who were placed on alternate status may re-apply for the next season. Please note the application form, resume, and all support materials must be in English.

Eligibility recently expanded to include degree-seeking students. Please feel welcome to apply.

Artistic Disciplines
Applicants should apply in the category that best represents their work. Applicants may apply to only one admissions panel, and in one genre, at a time. Applicants with concerns about the choice of the panel should contact the Residency Coordinator before submitting an application.

Literature: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, translation, and librettos
Visual Art: painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, mixed media, and installation art
Music Composition: instrumental forms (symphonic, chamber music, band), vocal forms (opera, choral, songs), electronic music, and music for film.
Choreography: artists working in choreography.
Media Art/New Genres: film, video, multi-media, performance/experimental theater, sound art, and radio.
Science: biology, chemistry, physics, math, environmental or agricultural science.

Work Sample Requirements
Visual Arts:

  • Submit six jpeg images to best present your work.
  • Provide 6 Images (up to 5 MB each)

Media Arts/New Genres:

  • You may submit more than one type of media to best present your work.
  • Excerpts of video work and film segments are requested. The panel may only watch the first five minutes.
  • Provide 1-6 items.
  • Images (up to 5 MB each), Video (up to 250 MB each), Audio (up to 30 MB each), and PDFs (up to 10 MB each). You may also link to media from YouTube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud

Choreography:

  • Excerpts of work requested if applicable. The panel may only watch the first five minutes.
  • Accepted media files (mov, wmv, flv, mp4)
  • Provide 1-5 items. Video (up to 250 MB each). You may also link to media from YouTube and Vimeo

Music Composition:

  • You may include 2 separate musical scores (PDF). This is optional not required. For works created without a score, a brief statement describing the recorded music should be included. You can do this after you upload. All audio samples need to be uploaded as MP3.
  • Provide 1-5 items. Audio (up to 30 MB each) and PDFs (up to 10 MB each). You may also link to media from SoundCloud

Literature:

  • Submit work (PDF) in only one genre per application.
  • Provide 1-5 items. PDFs (up to 10 MB each)
  • Prose: fiction, creative non-fiction, translation. Double-spaced typescript totaling no more than 30 pages
  • Drama: scripts, screenplays, librettos. Double-spaced typescript totaling no more than 30 pages
  • Poetry: 10 short, one-page poems or appropriate excerpts of a longer poem. Please include all poems in one file. no more than 10 pages
  • Graphic Novels: graphic novels

Collaboration, Couples, and Guests
Collaborations: Artists who plan to collaborate during the residency must submit individual applications. Work space needs should be clearly specified (i.e. whether or not separate studios are required). Also indicate if you are interested in attending as an individual artist.

Couples: Couples must apply separately with the understanding that each applicant will be reviewed separately by their discipline’s panel. If both artists are selected, we will make every effort to schedule you at the same time and arrange appropriate accommodations. Separate studios will be assigned unless otherwise requested. Please note on your applications if you would like to share the same living quarters.

Guests: Accommodations are limited to selected individual residents only. No accommodations for spouses, partners, or children are available. Friends or family who are in the area for brief visits cannot be accommodated overnight at the facility. They are welcome for day visits and dinner at the ranch. No personal pets are allowed.

 

Image credit: Barbara Nerness, still from video documentation of biofogback, July 2025

A person seen from behind looks at three stacked vintage CRT televisions on a desk in front of a large window. The bottom screen shows the hilly landscape visible outside, while the two smaller screens on top display static.

Future Fossils and Glaze Dreams

Submitted by Sue Huang on Friday, 08/09/2024 8:25pm

Using the Djerassi clay, I began to test out an idea that I had been thinking about for the last year. As part of my project Total Archive, I had conceptualized interspecies ghost creatures which would be amalgamated forms algorithmically generated from the IUCN Red List. I wanted to make negative impressions of these hybrid creatures as future fossils—remnants of our current endangered species for a speculative future. I made a few prototypes from the Djerassi clay for the Djerassi land.

What the Land Holds

Submitted by Sue Huang on Wednesday, 07/24/2024 12:17pm

As promised, here is an update on our wild clay ventures. Over the past weeks leading up to our Open Studios with Leonardo@Djerassi, a group of us processed the collected materials from the riverside cliffs. This was an exercise in patience. The raw clay material had a significant amount of redwood tree detritus mixed into it, so we added water to bring everything to a slurry. This took several days and many buckets! We then filtered all of the material through a 60 mesh screen. We then let the clay settle to the bottom and poured off excess water.

notes on not opening the black box (open studios 2024)

Submitted by Coral Pereda Serras on Tuesday, 07/23/2024 8:36pm

Fiery Mist

Submitted by Coral Pereda Serras on Wednesday, 07/10/2024 9:38am

 

 

For the past few days, the mist is being particularly electric as it tenaciously sculpts the landscape. On Sunday morning bright and early we went to catch the new moon low tide in Moss Beach. Lots of new non-human friends such as anemones, crustaceans and hermit crabs to add to my current list of hawks, crickets, gophers and alligator lizards...

Wild Clay at Djerassi

Submitted by Sue Huang on Thursday, 07/04/2024 7:03pm

 

Rob Jackson, Sanna Fogelvik, Anthony Acciavatti and I went on a little hunting expedition this past week. We went hunting for wild clay at Djerassi. Rob, Sanna and I were interested in doing some personal experiments and artworks with the clay while Anthony was interested in exploring the creek where we would be searching. We set off to the nearby Harrington Creek where we had been advised clay was most likely to be found. A first spot was a bit sandy and dry. A second spot was located that looked more promising. Rob then rounded a corner of the river bend and found a clay-rich area for harvesting under a redwood tree!

Botanicals for Thought

Submitted by Sue Huang on Thursday, 06/27/2024 12:52pm

 

Yesterday was our first full day at Djerassi. Danny Goldberg took us on a hike in the mid-afternoon. We departed from the Artist's Barn and walked a loop trail.

Along the way, we stopped at the many different artworks made by previous residents and Danny explained the botanicals along the pathway. The poison oak was especially evocative, with its many forms, shape-changing along the trail—from light green matte semi-translucent leaves in wispy singular growths to thick dark green oily leaves in tall dense bushes to bright red leafy lines.