Backcountry Artist Program

Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, the nation's first botanic garden to focus on the display and conservation of native plants, is seeking an artist to collaborate on an innovative, interactive installation in the Backcountry, a 4.5-acre area dedicated to exploration and discovery in nature. The selected artist will install work that inspires curiosity and engagement, with features that encourage visitors to climb, crawl, play, and explore.

The Garden is particularly interested in work inspired by the web of life that plants support. Patterns, colors, and textures that evoke native plants from different perspectives—such as making smaller things larger, larger things smaller, presenting different points of view, or immersing visitors in a novel space—are of particular interest. The selected artist should be able to incorporate one or more of the Garden's four principles (foster love of native plants, the plants are the teachers, less is more, be responsive to the learner) and four primary themes (native plants support the web of life, native plants provide a sense of place, native plants make our communities more resilient, native plants are under threat and need our protection) into their process.

Applicants must submit a portfolio and artist statement. Artists must be available to spend at least 40 hours at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden meeting with Garden staff and installing work. The Garden operates under a Conditional Use Permit that limits the use of lightning and amplified sound; the selected artist must be able to work within this framework. Event dates: 8/19/24 - 12/31/24. Budget: $10,000. Work sample requirements: 5-10 images, 0-3 audio files, 0-3 video files (5-16 total samples).