Launched in 2015, Art+Process+Ideas (A+P+I) is an artist-in-residence program that seeks to expand the dialog around art and art-making on campus and throughout the Bay Area.
A partnership between Mills College Art Museum (MCAM) and the Art and Visual Culture Department, the A+P+I residency fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across departments and provides opportunities for Mills students, faculty, and staff as well as the larger Bay Area arts community to interact, learn, and work with the visiting artists.
Each spring, art department faculty and museum staff nominates three contemporary Bay Area artists to move their practice to the Mills campus for six months. Throughout the residency term, A+P+I artists engage with Mills art students through lunchtime presentations, open studio opportunities, studio visits with MFA students, walkthroughs of the senior thesis exhibition. For developing artists, the residency provides immediate examples of how individual artists with divergent approaches to art-making model their practices.
In addition to an honorarium, A+P+I artists receive a private studio and access to Mills’ facilities—workshops, labs, media centers, etc.—and the broad range of faculty expertise that a liberal arts college offers. The A+P+I residency culminates in a summer exhibition at Mills College Art Museum which features new work created by the artists during their time on campus.
Mills has a long tradition of supporting artists, and this residency continues the campus' important role as a site for exploring new ideas in the arts.
