The School of Making Thinking (SMT) is a summer residency program where artists, activists and academics think, create, and live together in a communal setting. SMT grows unique environments where participants are able to create original work that challenges disciplinary conventions of art-making and thinking. SMT's mission is to create immersive artist residencies and arts programming responsive to community needs and in pursuit of equity, justice and sustainability. We employ radical pedagogy and strategic program design to shape our gatherings and to holistically support artists and thinkers in their practices.

They program asks: How does art deepen thought and provoke questioning? How is thinking enacted through creative mediums? And how can an environment be structured or resist structuring in such a way that these questions can not only be asked, but be lived as well?

In many respects, SMT resembles a traditional residency program. It attracts artists and writers who wish to retreat into a rural setting and devote a significant amount of time to the development of creative work away from the habits, distractions, and obligations of everyday life.

However, the School of Making Thinking is unique in three important respects. First, SMT participants hail from a far more diverse range of disciplines. Alumni are botanists, dancers, activists, playwrights, painters, poets, philosophers, sculptors, fiction writers, audio documentarians, filmmakers, performance artists, and PhD candidates. Second, collaboration is an essential component of each participant’s project and communal living experience. Third, SMT is a school in which participants teach and learn from one another.

SMT also runs a class series during the winter and spring in partnership with Abrons Art Center in New York. These classes have transitioned online during the COVID 19 pandemic. Please visit our website for up to date information on our classes and residencies www.theschoolofmakingthinking.com