The Paseo Project
Taos-to-Vermont
Artist Residency

The Paseo Project is thrilled to offer the Taos-to-Vermont Artist Residency. This opportunity offers a Taos-based artist a fully funded three-week residency at the renowned Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. The residency includes room, board, a private studio, and a stipend for travel and materials.

For over five years, The Paseo Project has hosted residencies for visiting artists, providing housing, studio space, and dedicated time for creative work in Taos. Executive Director Matt Thomas, a Vermont Studio Center artist-in-residence alumnus, explains the inspiration behind the Taos-to-Vermont Artist Residency initiative:

“Artist residencies offer artists invaluable time and space to focus on their work. We wanted to extend that same opportunity to a local artist—a chance to step away, find inspiration, and develop their practice.”

The program was originally conceived in 2019 but was postponed due to COVID. While the inaugural recipient, Nikesha Breeze, was unable to travel to Vermont, they used the allotted funds to develop their artistic practice. Now, The Paseo Project is excited to officially relaunch the Paseo Project Taos-to-Vermont Artist Residency.

Who Can Apply

The 2025 Paseo Project Taos-to-Vermont Artist Residency is open to full-time Taos County artists working in any visual arts medium. Artists at any stage of their career are eligible, with preference given to those who have not previously participated in a residency program. The selected artist must be available for the residency dates determined by VSC.

About Vermont Studio Center

The Vermont Studio Center is the largest international artist residency program in the United States. Located along the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont, Vermont Studio Center was founded in 1984 to foster creativity through community and reflection amidst the stunning Green Mountains.

Residency Details

The Paseo Project covers all residency costs, including room, studio, and meals. Additionally, a reimbursement is available for travel expenses and material supplies.

How to Apply

The Selection process for 2026 has not be announced yet.

For questions, please contact Nina@PaseoProject.org.

Additional Information

Website:www.paseoproject.org
Vermont Studio Center:https://vermontstudiocenter.org/

David Silva

David Michael Silva, a multidisciplinary artist and lifelong Taos resident, was selected as the recipient of the 2025 Taos to Vermont Artist in Residence award. Silva attended a fully funded residency at the renowned Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, from November 3–21, 2025.
David Silva is a conceptual artist working in film, sound, and performance. His practice is rooted in storytelling, community collaboration, and the landscapes of Northern New Mexico. Through his Agua y Azúcar Collective, Silva has produced immersive multimedia works, cultural events, and installations that reflect on memory, ritual, and emotion. His work was recently featured in The Paseo 2024 and is the Event Organizer for Taos’ Agua y Azúcar Fiesta.
At the Vermont Studio Center, Silva developed an original performance piece blending spoken word, field recordings, and site-specific stage design. Inspired by the Transcendentalist tradition and the ecology of the Northeast, the piece is to feature quadraphonic soundscapes recorded in the wild — including birdsong, river sounds, and ambient nature textures — as part of a larger exploration of how performance can exist outside the bounds of traditional theater.

The Disappearance of a Norteña

Learn more about David's work

Nikesha Breeze

The Paseo Project announced in 2020 that Nikesha Breeze had been selected as the first-ever Paseo Project Taos-to-Vermont Artist in Residence under a new program which sends a Taos-based artist away for a fully-funded residency. For 2020, The Paseo Project offered a one-month artist residency at the world-renowned Vermont Studio Center, in Johnson, Vermont. Due to the pandemic, Nikesha wasn’t able to attend the residency in Vermont and instead used the award to fund a research trip to Mexico.
Nikesha Breeze is an interdisciplinary contemporary artist. Within a practice of painting, sculpture, installation, film making, and performance art, their work investigates the interrelationality and resilience of the black and queer body in relationship to power, vulnerability, the sacred, and the ancestral. Their work is ritual and process based, often employing her entire physical body into the action of their work. Originally from Portland, Oregon, she is an American-born African Diaspora descendant of the Mende People of Sierra Leone, and Assyrian American Immigrants from Iran. Their work is deeply seated within stories and histories of marginalized peoples and communities.
Developing a new solo exhibition centered around the complex human relationship to wound and resilience. The work roughly intersects four main concepts, Ritual, Remembrance, Reparation and Reclamation from an Afro-futurist and Afro-centric perspective. The show would include visual artwork, performance, historical research, and conceptual installations made in their studio practice over the last two and a half years.