Apply: 2026 Artist-in-Residence Program

Application deadline: Friday, November 14, 2025, 5 p.m. Pacific Time

The UCLA Film & Television Archive’s Artist-in-Residence Program will host an emerging artist for two weeks on-site at the Archive’s locations in Santa Clarita at The Packard Humanities Institute Stoa and in Westwood on the UCLA campus during the late spring of 2026 to activate the Archive collection in their artistic practice. This year’s artist-in-residence will work exclusively with one or a combination of three specific collections: the Hearst Metrotone News Collection, In the Life LGBTQ+ Collection and KTLA Newsfilm Collection. The program will provide the artist with the time and support necessary to access and work with these unique collections, creating a project that will reach new audiences and make connections with Los Angeles’ cultural community.

Focused collections: Hearst Metrotone News, In the Life and KTLA Newsfilm 

The Archive holds the rights to these three collections and will make them available for the artist-in-residence without restriction.

• The Hearst Metrotone News Collection is one of the largest newsreel collections in the world. It contains over 27 million feet of distributed newsreels, unreleased stories and outtakes that range in date from the beginning of the series in 1914 through 1968.

• In the Life (1992–2012), television’s longest-running LGBTQ+ newsmagazine series covers stories of social and political topics facing these communities. Access to this collection will include extended interviews and B-roll footage.

• KTLA has been a prominent independent television station in the Los Angeles area for more than 60 years, bringing local, national and world news to a regional audience. The KTLA Newsfilm Collection at the Archive primarily encompasses footage from circa 1958 to 1981.
  
  

Both the Hearst and KTLA collections contain a wide range of domestic and international topics, as well as subject matter specific to the greater Los Angeles area.

For resources on the Archive’s Hearst Metrotone News, In the Life and KTLA Newsfilm collections, please visit:

• The Archive’s collection profiles: Hearst Metrotone News, In the Life, KTLA Newsfilm

• Search our catalog (select “UCLA Film & Television Archive”)
  
  

The residency will be a shared process for the Archive and the artist and will include the following core activities:

• The residency will commence in advance of the two-week, full-time on-site visits in the form of planning meetings to perform research, identify potential titles for access, refine project scope and proposal as needed, and collaborate with Archive staff to create an on-site visit itinerary.

• Research and identify materials for access from the Archive’s Hearst Metrotone News, In the Life and KTLA Newsfilm collections.

• As accessible analog works are identified in the collections, the Archive will provide resources to digitize these analog holdings to enable the artist to use high-resolution files in their work.

• An introduction to archival training to understand the process of conservation and digitization that will take place on-site at the Archive’s facility in Santa Clarita at the Packard Humanities Institute Stoa.

• The opportunity to meet with members of the Los Angeles community, the UCLA community and/or the archival community that could help advance their project, including filmmakers, archivists, past artist-in-residents and faculty. This work will take place either on Zoom or in person during the two-week, full-time visits.

• Between the end of the on-site residency and the end of the year, Archive staff will be available to work in consultation with the artist.

• By the end of 2026, the artist will finalize the work and discuss their residency at a public presentation, panel discussion or event in the Archive’s Virtual Screening Room.
  
  

Timeline for Artist-in-Residence Program

• Applications are due on Friday, November 14, 5 p.m. Pacific Time

• Selected applicant will be notified by early March, 2026

• In preparation for the two-week on-site visits:

• • Six weeks before the program begins, meet 4-5 times, in person or on Zoom, for orientation, preliminary planning and research

• Two-week, full-time on-site visits to be completed preferably in May, 2026, and no later than June 15, 2026

• Independent work and practice between June and November, 2026

• Archive presentation completed by December 1, 2026

• Finalized work to be submitted to the Archive for conservation by December 15, 2026

To support these core activities, the Archive will provide an honorarium of $10,750 for the selected artist-in-residence. The artist-in-residence will be responsible for booking their travel and lodging, and may use their honoraria for these expenses at their discretion. The artist-in-residence is solely responsible for determining their own tax liability and complying with all applicable tax laws and reporting obligations.

Criteria

The Archive highly encourages candidates to apply for the Artist-in-Residence Program if they meet the following criteria:

• The candidate is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. International scholars in the U.S. under a J1 or other work permit visa are not eligible for the program.

• The candidate is an emerging artist with less than 10 years of professional experience in their chosen artistic field whose professional and creative works demonstrate an interest in moving image media research and/or archival collections and institutions.

• The Archive collections available for this residency (Hearst newsreels, In the Life and KTLA) are directly related to the candidate’s proposed project, and the candidate has researched the holdings to assure that relevant materials would be available to them.

• The candidate’s proposed project will be shared as part of a public presentation, publication or exhibition.

• The candidate is not enrolled as a student in any degree-granting program during the residency period.
  
  

The Archive recognizes that barriers to archival access have limited engagement with this rich collection, particularly among emerging artists and cultural producers from marginalized communities. In the selection process, the advisory committee will prioritize proposals responsive to today’s cultural context and where candidates will benefit from access to the Archive holdings. The candidate is not required to have an academic background and can work in the visual arts, archiving, filmmaking and time-based media. Please review all guidelines to be certain that you and your project meet the criteria for this residency. 

While we do not expect applicants to be well-versed in the Archive’s entire collection, the proposal should demonstrate familiarity with the Archive’s mission and knowledge in areas of the collection that will be applicable/of interest to the proposed project.

The applicant’s project proposal will be evaluated by an advisory committee and based on the following criteria: evidence of commitment to their respective artistic field; interest in archival moving image research and collections; utilization of the Archive holdings in innovative ways within the parameters of the Artist-in-Residence Program timeline and resources.

Requirements

If accepted, the two-week, full-time visits must take place in Los Angeles in May or June of 2026. The residency may occur over two weeks in consecutive order or split into two one-week increments. The artist is expected to actively engage for at least 10 business days during the on-site visits.

The final project as well as projects utilizing resources from the residency will acknowledge the Archive as:

• “This project was created during the Artist-in-Residence Program at the UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2026, with support from the Golden Globe Foundation.”

In 2027, for the first year following the residency, in the interest of promoting access to the artist’s work, the artist will notify the Archive of any public presentations that include materials related to the project at least three weeks before the event.

Payment

• The honorarium is to be distributed in three payments:

  • After selection and after the Archive conducts planning meetings with the artist

  • Once the research visit is completed

  • Once the Archive presentation is complete

• Each payment may take up to 60 days to process.

• Current UCLA affiliates or anyone previously affiliated with UCLA in the past two years should expect additional wait times.
  
  

How to apply

Submit an application to the 2026 Artist-in-Residence Program Google Form. All application materials and media samples should be in one ZIP file, uploaded to this Box folder. Please use the following naming convention: <Last Name_First Name_AIR_2026>.

The application will require:

• The applicant’s contact details

• A general description or abstract of the research project (up to 150 words), including a title and format of the project

• A detailed explanation (up to 500 words) of how UCLA Film & Television Archive collection materials are essential to the progress and completion of the project. The explanation should answer the following prompts:

  • How do you hope to engage with the Archive?

  • How will working with the Archive’s collection support your creative practice?

  • Introductory research into the collection holdings is appreciated. Note which materials you would utilize in your project that are held in the available collections.  

• An abbreviated CV of no more than two pages

• Inclusion of 3-5 images or up to a five-minute clip from previous projects that demonstrates how your work would interact with the Archive’s collections. The description for these examples is limited to 100 words total.

• A short biography, no more than 100 words

• Contact information for one reference who is knowledgeable about the applicant’s work or proposed research project and can be reached in early to mid-March, 2026

Please note that the committee cannot consider letters of recommendation from librarians or staff of the UCLA Library.

If you have questions, please email air@cinema.ucla.edu.

Previous artists-in-residence

Learn about the inaugural artist-in-residence, Esteban Arellano, and the 2025 artist-in-residence, Ariel West.

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