If you’re seeking a week-long, residency-style experience at MASS MoCA — with the support of a talented instructor and none of the stress of a highly competitive application process — explore our Workshop-in-Residence opportunities. These programs offer all the benefits of a self-directed residency, including 24/7 access to a private studio, a private bedroom, and open access to MASS MoCA’s galleries, with the added structure and guidance of a workshop led by a professional in the field.

We also welcome self-directed artist groups (10 members required) for week-long retreats on a very limited basis. These group retreats offer similar perks — studio access, accommodations, and gallery admission — just without an instructor.

Scroll down to view upcoming workshop descriptions, and email studios@massmoca.org to inquire about workshop or retreat availability.

SPRING 2026 SEASON

The Art of Craft: a Generative Poetry Workshop with Amanda Moore
April 2 – 7, 2026
Details below

Creating Time and Space: A Week of Mindful Making with Joanne Dugan
April 15 – 26, 2026
Details below

Spring 2026 MASS MoCA Writing Through Art
Poetry Retreat with Jan Freeman
April 23 – 28, 2026
Details below

Email studios@massmoca.org to inquire about attending any of our workshops.

The Art of Craft: a Generative Poetry Workshop with Amanda Moore

April 2 – 7, 2026

Workshop description: This supportive yet rigorous 5-day generative workshop is open to poets at all levels who are looking for a guided residency designed to stimulate your imagination, reinvigorate your practice, and advance your craft. 

During this residency, we will develop and strengthen writing and notebook practices through experiments, prompts, and exercises that help us move outside our familiar writing modes to create at least 5 new poems, which we will nurture through an uplifting and encouraging daily workshop. As part of our work, we will take advantage of MASS MoCA’s exhibits; artwork by luminary artists will serve as writing subject and guide, and also as a model for our own artistic practice, an associative element to unlock ideas, memories, and language, and a means for tuning our observational eye. Through reading and discussion of source texts, we’ll explore poetic craft and learn to create prompts in response to our own reading and observation. Topics covered will include figurative language, poetic structure, rhythm, sound,  and that which emerges from our shared endeavors; your perspectives, questions, and curiosity will shape our discourse and direction. You will leave, new work and several other starts in hand, with a transformed personal practice and a clear sense of what’s next for your writing.

Apart from daily meetings and readings, the rest of the time is yours to work in your personal studio, seek inspiration within the museum, and explore the surrounding area: North Adams, nearby Williamstown, The Clark Art Institute, and the glorious Berkshires.  Each participant will have a one-on-one mentorship or coaching session with Amanda as well.

Workshop is limited to 10 poets. To apply, please email 3-5 poems and a brief statement about your poetry practice, what you hope to gain from this workshop, and anything else that feels pertinent, to amoore5272@gmail.com.

Cost: $1,500

Included in fee: Private, lockable artist studio on museum grounds with 24 hour access. Private bedroom (queen-sized bed) with shared bathroom and kitchen in walk-up apartments across the street from MASS MoCA. Welcome dinner on arrival day. Boxed lunches on museum grounds every day except for departure day. MASS MoCA membership benefits during the duration of the workshop, which include museum access and discounts to shops and events.

Instructor bio: Amanda Moore’s debut collection of poetry, Requeening, was selected for the 2020 National Poetry Series by Ocean Vuong and published by HarperCollins/Ecco. It was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award and featured in Oprah Magazine’s annual  Favorite Things Issue.  Her poems and translations have appeared in journals and anthologies including Best New Poets, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, LitHub, and Mamas and Papas: On the Sublime and Heartbreaking Art of Parenting, and her essays have appeared in Poets & Writers, The Baltimore Review, Hippocampus Magazine, and Catapult. She is the recipient of writing awards, residencies, and fellowships from Tin House Summer Workshop, Community of Writers, Brush Creek Arts Foundation, MASS MoCA, and The Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts.  

Former poetry co-editor at Women’s Voices for Change and a current Poetry Editor for Bull City Press’s INCH, Amanda has been a teacher for over 20 years in a wide variety of spaces, from high school and undergraduate classrooms to graduate seminars, from private living rooms to international institutions, jails, and prisons. Working with students of all ages and backgrounds is the key element of her writing practice, allowing her to foster dialogue and discussion while participating in a shared endeavor and, best of all, writing poems.

Creating Time and Space: A Week of Mindful Making with Joanne Dugan

April 15–26, 2026

Workshop description: Join visual artist, photographer, author, and 2024 Guggenheim Fellow Joanne Dugan for an expansive artist retreat held directly on the grounds of MASS MoCA. The full-immersion, residency-style workshop is suitable for visual artists, photographers and writers with an existing practice to restart, reinvent or expand.

The flexible curriculum of structured guided daily group meetings and mindfulness practices combined with plenty of open-ended work time allows artists to further an existing project and/or create spontaneously on site. Utilizing Joanne’s signature prompt-activation style, the group will create intuitive responses to the museum’s expansive collections as new work emerges quickly, in unexpected ways.

Each group member will have 24-hour access to a lockable private studio within the museum complex and will reside together in shared housing nearby. The cohort will also have unlimited free entry to MASS MoCA’s 250,000 square foot complex throughout the week, and instructor creative prompts will be inspired by exhibiting artists including James Turrell, Sol LeWitt, Taryn Simon, and Louise Bourgeois.

The thoughtful balance of scheduled and free time activities encourages purposeful, dedicated time and space for artistic experimentation and mindful focus, away from the distractions of daily life and the need to project expectations on outcomes.

Risk taking and multidisciplinary work is highly encouraged and there will be private scheduled feedback from the instructor, as well as ongoing cohort interactions in a safe, productive environment. An instructor questionnaire and suggested packing list sent prior will help participants create a realistic and clear vision for what they want
to accomplish.

Cost: $1,750

Included in fee: 24 hour access to museum grounds including private, lockable artist studio, printmaking studio and laser printers. Private bedroom (Queen-sized bed) with shared bathroom and kitchen in walk-up apartments across the street from MASS MoCA. Group welcome dinner on arrival day. Boxed lunches daily on museum grounds, except for departure day. MASS MoCA membership benefits (including free gallery access) for the duration of the workshop.

By application/invitation. For more information, email studio@joannedugan.com.

Instructor bio: Joanne Dugan is a widely published and exhibited visual artist, photographer, editor, and author based in New York City. She is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow in Photography. Her work was recently acquired for the permanent collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum and has been exhibited in galleries in the US, UK, Europe and Asia. Publications include The New York Times T Magazine, the Harvard Review, Unseen and Photograph magazines, among others. She was recently awarded residencies at Mass MoCA, the Peaked Hill Trust and the Abbott Watts Residency for Photography and was a finalist for the Meijberg Art Prize at Unseen Amsterdam.

Dugan’s visual work and writing is published in seven best-selling books,
including Summertime (Chronicle), and ABC NYC: A Book About Seeing New York
City (Abrams). Her limited-edition monograph, Mostly True, is in the permanent library collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and the George Eastman House. She is an active mentor for artists and writers around the world and recently founded The Creative Current, a private monthly lecture series about artistic mindfulness. She teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and the Los Angeles Center of Photography and has lectured at institutions in the US and abroad.

Spring 2026 MASS MoCA Writing Through Art

Poetry Retreat with Jan Freeman
April 23 – 28, 2026

Workshop description: Join Jan Freeman, acclaimed poet and Paris Press founding Director for The MASS MoCA Writing Through Art Poetry Retreat, a generative writing experience. Explore the many ways that visual art can open your poems and perception in this expansive 5-day writing retreat. Through daily prompts, exercises, discussions, and readings, you will experience the many ways that paintings, prints, installations, and sculpture can open memories, emotion, the imagination, and new forms of written expression. The retreat will include morning workshops in the galleries of MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and the Williams College Museum of Art. Afternoons can be spent writing in your private studio at MASS MoCA, visiting the many museum galleries, reading, and walking the trails at the Clark. Whatever inspires and restores you.

Poets and writers of all levels of experience are welcome.

Each participant receives a private 60-minute conference to discuss your writing goals and challenges and/or 3 poems of your choice. An in-depth manuscript consultation is available for an additional fee.

Contact janfreemanpoetry@gmail.com for additional information.

Cost: $1,600 (limited financial assistance available).
Payable via Venmo, Zelle, or by check.

Included: Private writing studio at the museum, with 24/7 access. Private bedroom (queen-sized bed) with shared bathroom and kitchen in walk-up apartments across the street from MASS MoCA. Learn more about our facilities. Free admission to MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and WCMA throughout the week. Free parking. Welcome dinner on arrival. Boxed lunches provided every day except for departure day.

Extras: The Berkshires in the spring are a haven for cultural and outdoor activities. The paths on the grounds of the Clark Art Institute and the hiking trails in North Adams and Williamstown offer the beauty of New England in full springtime. In addition, all MASS MoCA performances are available at the members’ discount.

To apply, please send 3 poems and a statement of interest to janfreemanpoetry@gmail.com.