Summer Conference

For the past 15 years, Haystack has been organizing summer conferences, symposia, and special programs that explore ideas of craft, community, and the creative process.

2023 HAYSTACK LABS

JULY 8-14, 2023

Haystack Labs is a one-week, invitational, experimental program that brings together a diverse collection of creative professionals from around the world to explore the relationship between craft and technology. Over the span of the week artists, designers, material scientists, machine builders, and coders come together on the Haystack campus and in the studios to explore the integration of emerging technologies and processes for craft.

In 2021, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms developed and piloted an experimental residential program, which is referred to as Haystack Labs. This pilot was so successful that the program ran again in 2022 and expanded to include a broader collection of people from both craft and digital fabrication communities. This year we will again create this community of craft and design professions for a variety of innovative projects that will help inform artists how to integrate craft, as well as how machine/tool/software designers can best serve creative makers. 

Looking Back:
2022 CONFERENCE

Re/Union:
Re-Editioning Black + Native Histories

This private, invitational gathering convened from July 11 to 14, 2022 on the Haystack campus. Re/Union: Re-Editioning Black + Native Histories included talks by thought leaders, special meals by guest chefs, and workshops by visual and performance artists, writers, and scholars. The extraordinary team at Indigo Arts Alliance identified multigenerational participation by individuals at varying stages of their lives; from emerging and young professionals, to mid-career, and elders in their respective fields. This gathering was intended to be a moment to rethink, revise, rewrite, and embrace multiple ways of interpreting and reading that which has been historically and culturally left out, rendered invisible, or appropriated.

Registration for Re/Union: Re-Editioning Black + Native Histories was not open to the public, but the proceedings will be made widely available as the subject of the next edition of Haystack’s long-running Monograph Series. Re/Union: Re-Editioning Black + Native Histories has been informed by the goals of Haystack’s recent Strategic Plan and our commitment to broadening the audiences we collaborate with and learn from.

Generous support was provided by Haystack’s Windgate Foundation Endowment for Programs, The Chipstone Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from foundations and current-year donors.

ABOUT INDIGO ARTS ALLIANCE

Indigo Arts Alliance is an artist residency and arts incubator in Portland, Maine, founded and created to amplify the creative voices, vision, and practice of artists of African descent. An integral aspect of the Indigo vision is to provide Maine based artists of color access to a broader range of practicing Black artists and artists of color from around the world.

QUESTIONS?

For more information or to be added to our conference mailing list contact Haystack.