Collaborative Media Residency

What is the Collaborative Media Residency?

Overview

Collaborative Residency is an optional 3-credit course where you create a project in partnership with an external organization or artist. The goal is to produce work that benefits both you (as a portfolio piece) and your collaborating partner. this can be an in-house project or external creative residency that must be defined in conjunction with the graduate adviser and must involve collaboration among different media makers.

The description, while brief, highlights a key distinction between a Collab and a typical internship. The Collab must involve “collaboration,” an element absent from traditional internship arrangements. Collab is not designed for students to get general experience working in a media organization or to serve as CV filler. We encourage you to pursue internships if they fit your needs and goals. However, we do not give credit for internships and in most cases internships will not satisfy the Collab requirement.

Collab also differs from an employment situation, where it’s your “job” to do as instructed. In an employer-employee relationship, you do not necessarily have the opportunity to genuinely collaborate. Although Collab does require a resident supervisor to help define the Collab parameters and goals prior to Collab approval, and to evaluate the student’s work upon Collab completion, this does not create the same dynamic that exists in an employment setting.

Collab should be project based, not oriented around general tasks. Collab requires working with others to make something. We define that something broadly. It could be a film, or a website, or an interactive application. And it could also be curating a show, programming a screening series, planning a conference, or creating an issue oriented outreach campaign.

Your work should be substantive and incorporate a creative component or skill set that would otherwise be missing from the project. And your role should build upon a theoretical and technical base connected to your IMA studies. Collab is an opportunity for you to apply what you’ve learning in your IMA courses to a non-classroom context. Collab should complement your work in the program and help you forge connections outside it.

Project Examples

  • Short documentary film for a nonprofit organization 
  • Sound walk created with a historical society exploring neighborhood history
  • Set design and projections for a theatrical production
  • Film editing in collaboration with a filmmaker or organization

How Projects Are Initiated

You identify and propose a collaboration with an artist or organization you’ve researched or have an existing connection with. Apply using the process below.

Occasionally IMA receives collaboration proposals from organizations/artists and pitches them to interested students.

Application Process

1. Submit Your Proposal

Write a one-page proposal including:

  • Description of what you plan to accomplish during the semester
  • Information about the collaborating artist/organization
  • (Optional) Your 1st and 2nd choice for faculty mentor 
  • Submit as a PDF attachment to Andrew Lund and the program coordinator for approval, cc’ing the program coordinator. The Program does not retroactively approve Collab projects.

2. Select a Faculty Mentor

Once approved, you’ll select and seek out a faculty mentor who will:

  • Guide your project for 9 hours total throughout the semester
  • Be compensated at their usual rate
  • Assign your final grade
  • You’ll then be registered for IMA 78100, and we’ll connect you with your chosen mentor

3. Deliverables

Upon completion of your Collab, you must submit a written project summary and have a project to show or one that you have documented. We may include Collab projects, project excerpts, and/or project summaries/documentation in the Collab section of our website.

4. Completion

  • At semester’s end, your faculty mentor will write a letter to the IMA Program Director evaluating your performance. The program then enters that grade.your faculty mentor submits (similar to an Independent Study).
  • Upon completion of the Collab you must submit a written project summary and have a project to show or one that you have documented. We will include Collab projects, project excerpts, and/or project summaries/documentation in the Collab section of our website. We also plan to introduce an annual Collab event in the spring semester with project presentations and Collab partnership involvement. Submission of materials for the website and participation at this event are components of the Collab requirement.

3. Completion

At semester’s end, your faculty mentor will write a letter to the IMA Program Director evaluating your performance. The program then enters that grade your faculty mentor submits (similar to an Independent Study).