thems. artist residency
A brand new 6-month, project-based artist residency in Phoenix, AZ.
About:
This is a project-based residency, where residents develop a defined body of new work. The residency supports artistic growth while fostering meaningful exchange with the LGBTQIA+ communities in Phoenix and beyond. We aim to support creative experimentation and community collaboration across Arizona.
The next application cycle will open in May 2026, with applications available on our website. We look forward to welcoming visionary creators shaping a more inclusive, community-rooted arts future.
For questions email thems.phx@gmail.com
2026 Artists Cohort:
Our first Artist-in-Residence cohort will serve as an important pilot program and trial phase created to help the thems. phoenix team thoughtfully shape and refine the residency experience. Through guidance, feedback, and intentional trial-and-error, our inaugural residents will collaborate closely with thems. staff to build a responsible, and worthwhile experience for future artists.
Our goal is to continue developing the program into an enduring space for artists to deepen their art practice while engaging and supporting the local queer community through community-driven programming across Phoenix, AZ and alongside partner organizations.
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Patrick De Leon, MFA, is a writer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist based in Phoenix, Arizona. His work spans poetry, video, printmaking, and photography. His video practice layers found images, personal archives, and data sonifications to evoke memory, queer longing, desire, and grief. Patrick’s creative work has received support from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, the ASU Writing Programs Fellowship in Composition Pedagogy, and the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands
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Lan Lesmeister (they/them) is a poet, performer, playwright, and filmmaker from St. Louis, Missouri. Their writing is published or forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review, Foglifter, The Offing, and elsewhere. Lan has written and performed for venues including The Lincoln Center, Washington University in St. Louis, Nuyorican Poets Café, Maui Arts Cultural Center, Brave New Voices, The Theatre Communications Group National Conference, and elsewhere. Their debut film was published by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. Lan’s writing investigates the intersection of gender, race, beauty, and interiority.
Explore: Patrick De Leon
‘Astra Memoria’ stills provided by Patrick De Leon
His video practice layers found images, personal archives, and data sonifications to evoke memory, queer longing, desire, and grief.
‘Gospel of Faggotry’ stills provided by Patrick De Leon
Patrick De Leon, MFA, is a writer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist based in Phoenix, Arizona. His work spans poetry, video, printmaking, and photography
‘Museum of Grief’ stills provided by Patrick De Leon
Explore: Lan Lesmiester
’Blouse’ stills provided by Lan Lesmeister
Lan’s goal is to make poetry more accessible and exciting for LGBTQIA+ people by providing workshops that will allow the larger community to learn from trans poetics, and how they may approach revision as a generative path rather than with a red pen.
‘hurt me’ stills provided by Lan Lesmeister
Lan Lesmeister, (they/them), is a poet, performer, playwright, and filmmaker from St. Louis, Missouri. Lan’s writing investigates the intersection of gender, race, beauty, and interiority.
Childlike a Child is, I Howled
as the bee stung me.
I plucked the stinger from me like a sword.
Who said Arthur pulled Excalibur from stone alone?
Alone, you pulled me from my depths, like a myth.
Like a book in a library of infinite books, find a way to hold me.
You said, I love you, infinity.
I’ve been waiting so long to love myself enough to love like that, with all of me.
The ginkgo’s leaves fall at once
like a round of applause,
like me, darling—
like me.
Written by Lan Lesmeister. Originally published in The Missouri Review.
What We Hold
In the warehouse my grandmother’s belongings
reduced to piles of trash bags.
In the camps, my uncle— a single bag,
all he owned, marked by his refugee number
sewn into burlap. Here there are no numbers.
Each bag a shadow I crack and tear
till brilliance, your áo dài refracting the tears
of light. Each silver sequin pinned like petals
off jasmine, frozen in time. Still the petals
of your perfume , I smell, it’s ghost clinging
to silk it’s faint, but the numbers cling.
What you left behind in the trash I take and
do what you taught me to do with the lost and
buried. I dig. I remember. what we keep. longing.
Written by Lan Lesmeister. Originally published in The Offing.