Artist-In-Residence Program
The artist-in-residence program supports artists in both the exploration of new frontiers and in the creation of new work. The Momentary invites artists working across disciplines to Bentonville, Arkansas, to work alongside a world-class support team of producers, preparators, and curators as they explore, experiment, research, and develop new work. As the Momentary grows as a welcoming hub that gathers and celebrates local heroes and international stars, we invite you to get to know the art of this moment.
The program is currently invitation only.
Find out more about our past artists-in-residence or check out our calendar for information on studio visits, artist conversations, and showcases of works-in-progress.
CURRENT ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
Jay Benham
August 13 – September 24, 2025
His Anglo name is Jay Benham, and his Kiowa name is Au Pia Goodle (“Red Otter”), a name passed down from his great-grandfather.
Jay was born in Oklahoma City to a 100% Kiowa mother and an Anglo father. Summers, holidays, and special events were spent with his Kiowa family, immersing him in the traditions, stories, and values that have shaped his life. Kiowa cultural practices have remained a constant thread throughout his personal and professional journey.
From as early as the eighth grade, Jay knew he wanted to be an art teacher. Art was his natural language, and as a child he painted on any surface he could find. That passion carried him through his education—earning a B.S.E. in Art Education from Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and later an M.A. in Art Education from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Jay has taught elementary, junior high, and high school art in Arkansas and Arizona. While living in Flagstaff, he began showing his work in a Sedona art gallery. Jay’s career in Native American art deepened when he exhibited in the Oklahoma Indian Art Gallery, operated by Doris Littrell, a Designated Oklahoma Living Art Treasure who played a pivotal role in hisdevelopment as an artist. Over the years, Jay Benham’s work has been shown in Santa Fe, Tahlequah, and numerous Native American art shows, including The Red Earth Festival (Oklahoma City), the Santa Fe Indian Market (SWAIA), and The Cherokee Art Market (Catoosa, Oklahoma). Jay’s art is held in permanent collections at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Modern Art (University of Oklahoma), the Sequoyah National Research Center (University of Arkansas–Little Rock), The Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, Georgia and the Kiowa Tribal Art Museum (Carnegie, Oklahoma).
Alongside his art career, Jay worked in the corporate world for two Fortune 500 food companies, gaining experience in manufacturing, consumer relations, employee development, and quality systems.
Today, his focus is on creating a lasting impact on Native American art, with a special emphasis on Contemporary Kiowa Ledger Art. Jay’s goal is to celebrate and advance our cultural practices and traditions, building a regional network of Native artists to collaborate on innovative projects.
One of his recent projects was serving as historical and cultural consultant, as well as executive producer, for a short film based on a true story from 1874. It tells of two Kiowa fathers who travel from Oklahoma to Texas to reclaim the remains of their sons who died in battle, only to face a deep conflict over whether the tribe should continue resisting U.S. forces or seek peace and survival on a reservation.
This experience reshaped Jay Benham’s approach to art. He is now developing Contemporary Kiowa Ledger Art Installations—three-dimensional, immersive scenes that bring traditional ledger narratives to life. These installations will combine painted actors, staged environments, music, dance, and dialogue to tell powerful stories in real time, expanding the reach and resonance of traditional ledger art.
The purpose of these projects is to strengthen the Native American voice in our communities—sharing essential narratives such as the U.S. Boarding School experience and the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons. By engaging audiences in these immersive stories, Jay aims to foster dialogue, understanding, and mutual respect, helping to move us toward social justice and greater awareness of Indigenous perspectives.
Jay Benham is committed to ensuring that these stories are not only told but felt—and remembered.
Danielle Hatch
August – December, 2025
Danielle Hatch is an interdisciplinary Peruvian American artist based in the Arkansas Ozarks. Born and raised in Southern California, she received her BA in Architecture from Wellesley College and MFA in Spatial Studies from UC-Santa Barbara.
In her site-specific installations, sculptures, and performances, Hatch makes women’s lived experiences and aesthetic interventions into the built environment visible beyond traditionally domestic spaces. She applies the techniques of quilting and other needlework, often on a monumental scale, to create biomorphic designs that contrast the sometimes harsh, inorganic geometry of contemporary architecture.
Hatch received a 2024 MacDowell Fellowship, and her work has been exhibited across the U.S. and internationally, including at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale (2025), the AD&A Museum in Santa Barbara, CA, the Gregg Museum of Art and Design in Raleigh, NC, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR, Mid-America Arts Alliance’s Culture Lab in Kansas City, MO, and the Tephra ICA Arts Festival in Reston, VA.
While in residence, Hatch will develop a performance for the 2025 Inverse Festival. Through the format of a participatory nine course meal, the performance will encompass aspects of ritual, play and emotional exchange. Thematically the work will explore both the geography of motherhood, and mothering as survival, examining the mother/infant relationship through the lens of the work of psychoanalyst and pediatrician DW Winnicott.
FUTURE ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE
Katinka Kleijn & Stephen Moore: The Bionic Synthmap
October 10th – 11th
The Bionic Synthmap is a site-specific sound sculpture that explores shared circuits between human bodies and synthesizers. An interactive installation, it considers interactive connectivity, perceptual experience, and psychophysics. When activated, Momentous festivalgoers and The Tower become one. Join Katinka and become a cyborg musician on October 10-11th. Learn more about Momentous.
Katinka Kleijn enjoys a genre-defying, interdisciplinary career. A classically trained cellist, she has since cultivated an exploratory creative practice at the intersection of performance art, improvisation and composition. In her process, Kleijn uses the boundaries of time-based performance to synthesize situation-based results, where dynamics of a chosen concept can exist and interact in an alternate space. Exploring the body and its interaction with the physicality of sound, she often presents her cello as an anthropomorphic entity, a body corollary to (or even morphed with) her own. A featured VIP contemporary artist at EXPO Chicago 2025, Kleijn performed Scratching, which deals with the role of the female body in society, specifically in orchestra culture. Her ongoing collaboration with Chicago-based Industry of the Ordinary resulted in Intelligence in the Human-Machine, a duet between Kleijn’s cello and her own brainwaves which Time magazine called “a balancing act for Kleijn’s whole body.” Kleijn and cellist Lia Kohl waded with 30 cellos in Chicago’s Eckhart Park Pool for their devised work Water On the Bridge, and her composition Forward Echo, for 11 improvisers, was performed at Knoxville’s 2022 Big Ears Festival. Kleijn is a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and International Contemporary Ensemble, recorded for Drag City, and presented solo multimedia presentations at North Carolina Performing Arts, Library of Congress, Roulette Intermedium, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
Stephan Moore is a sound artist, designer, composer, improviser, programmer, engineer, teacher, and curator based in Chicago. His creative work manifests as electronic studio compositions, improvisational outbursts, sound installations, scores for collaborative performances, algorithmic compositions, interactive art, and sound designs for unusual circumstances. Much of his work has been realized in collaborative projects, most notably with sound artist Scott Smallwood in their duo Evidence and with choreographer Yanira Castro in the collective a canary torsi. He is the curator of sound art for the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, organizing annual exhibitions since 2014. He is also the president of Isobel Audio LLC, which builds and sells his Hemisphere loudspeakers. He was the music coordinator and touring sound engineer of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (2004-10), and has worked with Pauline Oliveros, Anthony McCall, and Animal Collective, among many others. In 2019, he co-founded the Chicago Laboratory for Electro-Acoustic Theater to promote and encourage the creation of multichannel audio works. He is a Distinguished Associate Professor of Instruction in the Sound Arts and Industries program at Northwestern University.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How are artists selected?
Artists are chosen by a selection committee comprised of Momentary and Crystal Bridges staff members.
What kind of artists does the Momentary feature?
We invite artists from all disciplines, including but not limited to visual, performing, and culinary artists.
Can I apply? Is there an open application process?
Currently there is not an open application process.
How long is the typical residency?
Residencies range from six weeks to three months.
Is there public presentation expected as part of the residency?
The residency is process-based rather than product-based with artists not expected to complete projects while in residence. The artist can determine whether or not a public presentation will be conducted as part of their residency. Artists will be asked to have an open studio for the general public.
Are artists expected to cover travel and housing expenses?
Housing for all artists in residence is provided, as well as travel expenses.
Does the Momentary provide supplies?
A limited amount of supplies is provided, arranged with the artists beforehand.
Will there be a private studio?
Yes, artists will have access to a dedicated studio located in the Momentary.
Does the program accommodate family or pets?
The artist-in-residence program is a working community of professional artists and art space. We cannot accommodate family members or friends of invited guests, for either overnight stays or meals. Service animals are the animals allowed to accompany the artists.
What can artists do when they’re not working?
The Momentary is right in the heart of Bentonville! When artists aren’t working, there is an abundance of restaurants, museums, performing arts centers, and hiking and biking trails to discover in Northwest Arkansas.
Artists will receive a welcome packet and guide to the area upon arrival. Our artist liaison will be able to supply information and recommendations for activities around town.