Djerassi Resident Artists Program

Djerassi Resident Artists Program Where Art Originates | Artist Residency Program in Woodside, CA

We’re excited to welcome special performances by Djerassi alumni at Artful Harvest on Sunday, September 27!Shinobu Eto, ...
09/02/2026

We’re excited to welcome special performances by Djerassi alumni at Artful Harvest on Sunday, September 27!

Shinobu Eto, Djerassi 2025 alumna, is a Tokyo-based koto player whose practice moves between traditional Japanese jiuta-sokyoku, contemporary music, and improvisation. At Artful Harvest, Eto will bring the distinctive sound of the koto to the Djerassi landscape.

McArdle Hankin and Ellison Libiran, Djerassi 2024 alumni and founders of Back Pocket Media, will present a storytelling experience exploring the power of stories to create change, build community, and bring people together.

Join us for an evening celebrating art, performance, food, and community in the Santa Cruz Mountains, with a three-course dinner by the Michelin-starred Village Pub, our annual art auction, and a curated exhibition, all in support of artists and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program.

For more information & tickets, visit the link in our bio!

Applications for Djerassi’s 2027 Residency Season are now open!!For more than four decades, the Djerassi Resident Artist...
09/01/2026

Applications for Djerassi’s 2027 Residency Season are now open!!
For more than four decades, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program has offered artists and scientists the gift of uninterrupted time and space to create, experiment, reflect, and connect within our 583-acre ranch in Northern California’s Santa Cruz Mountains.

Our 4–5 week residencies are offered at no cost to the artist, providing dedicated living and studio space alongside a small, interdisciplinary community of peers. We welcome applications from emerging, mid-career, and established national and international artists.

Choreography
Film
Literature [all disciplines of writing]
Media Arts
Music Composition
Science & Technology
Visual Arts

Since its founding, Djerassi has supported more than 2,700 artists and scientists, creating a place where creative work can unfold without interruption and new ideas can take shape.

Applications are open September 1–October 9, 2026.
Visit djerassi.org/apply/2027residency/ or visit the link in bio to apply!

Photos by JESSIE BARR

Imani Gaudin | Performing ArtsImani Gaudin gaudanse is a whimsical New Orleans born interdisciplinary dance and performi...
09/01/2026

Imani Gaudin | Performing Arts
Imani Gaudin gaudanse is a whimsical New Orleans born interdisciplinary dance and performing artist based between New Orleans, LA and New York, NY. She is the Founding Artistic Director of gaudanse, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding accessibility, sustainability, and wellness-based arts practices for underserved communities of performing artist. As a performer, she currently is a movement artist with Shamel Pitts’s TRIBE. Her work has been commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts, Hudson Yards Hell’s Kitchen Alliance, and Churchtown Dairy. Additionally, her work has received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, National Performance Network, and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation. Imani has been a resident artist at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, New Dance Alliance, Baryshnikov Arts, and BAAD! through Pepatián’s Dancing Futures Residency, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. In 2025, she was named a Gambit 40 under 40 Honoree, premiered her first self-produced evening length work nanibu, and made her international debut with her work mamihlapinatapai, in Paris, France.

Marcella Lewis // Guest Dancer
Marcella Lewis is a proud Los Angeles native and multidisciplinary performing artist, with an emphasis on movement expression. Marcella is also a choreographer, educator, poet, assemblage artist, thought/creation doula, performance curator, and jewelry maker. Marcella’s connection to the Divine and her relationship to Black women and Black womanhood are often her source of inspiration and power. As an artist and creator, Marcella values intimacy, intuition, intention, vulnerability, subtlety, suspense, emotional expression and authenticity.

“Marcella is the Thought Doula for Imani’s work ‘What would the world do without flowers…?’

Images 1-2: Photos by Leighann Kowalsky

Valkyrie Yao | Choreographer/Media ArtsValkyrie Yao is an artist, choreographer, and researcher working across performan...
08/25/2026

Valkyrie Yao | Choreographer/Media Arts
Valkyrie Yao is an artist, choreographer, and researcher working across performance, moving image, installation, and performance and media studies. Her practice explores ritual, material culture, cultural transmission, and the relationships among bodies, images, objects, and environments. Her work has been presented internationally at institutions including the Detroit Institute of Arts, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Gibney, and the Florence Biennale. A 2026–27 Folger Institute Research Fellow, Yao is also the Founder and Executive Director of ELSEHERE International Arts Nexus and Founding Editor of STRATUM Journal of Art, Culture, and the Humanities. Her work has received support from Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and The Laundromat Project. She holds a BFA in Choreography from Shenyang Conservatory of Music and an MFA in Dance from Arizona State University.

“What question is guiding your practice right now?”
[VY] “The question I’m carrying with me right now is what happens when disappearance becomes part of how a work acts. I’m interested in forms whose force may depend on transformation, dispersal, exhaustion, or decay, and in what these processes ask of the body, the image, and the materials that carry them. At Djerassi, I’m working across performance, moving image, and material processes to consider what becomes possible when permanence is no longer the measure of a work’s life.”

Off to On, 2024
Choreography / Performance
Choreographed by Valkyrie Yao
Performed by Valkyrie Yao and Dean Saifullin
Photo by Tim Trumble

Screaming, 2024
Installation, Xuan paper and water
Photo courtesy of Richard Pence

Nigaogemao (你搞个毛), 2024
Installation, hair, paper, and tape
Photo courtesy of Richard Pence

LuLing Osofsky | Journalismlu_ling is a writer and interdisciplinary artist based in Santa Cruz, CA, with roots in New Y...
08/24/2026

LuLing Osofsky | Journalism
lu_ling is a writer and interdisciplinary artist based in Santa Cruz, CA, with roots in New York and Hong Kong. Concerned primarily with the entwinement of racialized and environmental violence, recent projects have investigated whales, mourning, atomic tourism, mixed race bodies, and labor organizing within the neoliberal university. LuLing has been awarded residencies from Lighthouse Works, Art Omi, Vermont Studio Center, and Mesa Refuge and has presented creative and critical work at SFMoMA and the Getty Museum. She has published essays in Paris Review Daily, High Country News, Orion, Long-Haul, and The Offing, with academic work forthcoming in multiple edited volumes. She holds a PhD in History of Art and Visual Culture from UC Santa Cruz and is Curator of contemporary art for UC CAAN, a University of California arts and climate initiative.

During her time at Djerassi, LuLing is working on a nonfiction book project that combines memoir, reportage, and theory. It centers around the death of a close friend who, in the midst of a mental health episode at home in Colorado, fatally shot a police officer and was subsequently killed in a shoot out with a SWAT team. The book is an investigation of the many threads that unfurl from that fateful incident: place; police violence; masculinity; the illegibility of biraciality, bisexuality and bipolarity; intergenerational trauma; memory; and haunting.

Image 2: “Whale bone meditation,” text & performance. Photograph by Hannah Jayanti
Image 3: “Tikkun Olam,” text & performance. Photograph by Jeppe Ulgevig

Registration for Fall Art Hikes is Now Open!Experience Djerassi this fall with a guided Art Hike through our 583-acre la...
08/20/2026

Registration for Fall Art Hikes is Now Open!

Experience Djerassi this fall with a guided Art Hike through our 583-acre landscape in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Explore more than 40 site-specific sculptures and installations while learning about Djerassi’s history, artists, and land. Each three-hour hike covers approximately 3.5 miles of trails, offering a rare opportunity to experience art where it was created.

Fall dates are now open for registration. Space is limited and hikes fill quickly.

Register through the link in bio!

We are so excited to welcome our Session 2, 2026 to artists to Djerassi! For the next four weeks, this interdisciplinary...
08/18/2026

We are so excited to welcome our Session 2, 2026 to artists to Djerassi! For the next four weeks, this interdisciplinary group of artists will live and work across Djerassi’s 583 acres, with dedicated time and space to focus on their creative practices. Through exploration, exchange, and shared experience, we look forward to seeing the ideas, connections, and new work that emerges during their time in residence.

RK Fauth // Literature
Imani Gaudin // Performing Arts
Gabriel Miniberg // Music Composition
Jordan Nobles // Music Composition
Luling Osofsky // Media Arts
Robin Prichard // Choreography
Larisa Usich // Visual Arts
Valkyrie Yao // Choreography/Media Arts

between membranesUnfolding Grounds × DjerassiSunday, August 16 // 11:00 AMJoin us this Sunday for between membranes, a g...
08/12/2026

between membranes
Unfolding Grounds × Djerassi
Sunday, August 16 // 11:00 AM

Join us this Sunday for between membranes, a guided art hike presented by Unfolding Grounds at Djerassi.

Moving through Djerassi’s landscape, between membranes explores the subtle thresholds between human presence and the natural world through site-specific sound, performance, food, and nature.

Featuring artists Li Yilei with Kirill Burlov, Aine Nakamura, Alex H Nichols, Jorge Bachmann, and blurness (Barbara Nerness), curated by yi yang and Mushi Wooseong James.

The experience is deeply participatory. Guests are encouraged to bring a camera or recording device to document the day, with photographs and reflections later brought together in a collective artist book as a shared archive of the experience.

Registration is free and space is limited - visit the link in our bio!

Presented by Unfolding Grounds in collaboration with Djerassi Resident Artists Program.

Alex Nichols
Jorge Bachmann
ᴸᴵ ʸᴵᴸᴱᴵ
KIRILL BURLOV CHOREOGRAPHER
Barbara Nerness
Yi Yang
Mushi Wooseong James

It’s that time of year again!!✨Join us at the Djerassi ranch for Artful Harvest on Sunday, September 27, 2026!!We’re gat...
08/12/2026

It’s that time of year again!!
✨Join us at the Djerassi ranch for Artful Harvest on Sunday, September 27, 2026!!

We’re gathering in the Santa Cruz Mountains for an unforgettable afternoon celebrating artists, creativity, and the community that makes Djerassi possible.

Dine on a three-course dinner by Michelin-starred The Village Pub collect works by Djerassi alumni and partner artists, experience live performances, and bid on one-of-a-kind experiences, all while supporting the artists and artistic process at the heart of Djerassi. ♡

Come for the art. Come for the food. Come for the view. Stay for a celebration unlike any other.

Sunday, September 27, 2026 | 3–7 PM
Djerassi Resident Artists Program
Woodside, CA

Learn more and get tickets through the link in our bio

Photos by Top San Francisco Event Photos

We were delighted to welcome SFMOMA SECA members to Djerassi this past Saturday for a day of art, conversation, and comm...
08/03/2026

We were delighted to welcome SFMOMA SECA members to Djerassi this past Saturday for a day of art, conversation, and community.

Guests joined Djerassi Executive Director Craig Adams and Creative Director Mushi Wooseong James for a guided walk through the landscape, experiencing site-responsive works including HEARTH by McKenzie Genin, Breathing Stones by Kamran Samimi, and Lighthouse by Mark Baugh-Sasaki.

The afternoon concluded with a beautifully catered lunch by Chef Yusuke Konno of TOMODACHI, shared together in the Artists Barn.

Thank you to everyone who joined us! It was a pleasure to share the land, the art, and the mission of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program!

Address

2325 Bear Gulch Road
Woodside, CA
94062

Website

,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Djerassi Resident Artists Program posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Djerassi Resident Artists Program:

Shortcuts

Share

Category