Open Call: Counter-Media Residency
Are you a media-maker interested in joining a community of scholars and practitioners at the intersection of religion and media studies? CU Boulder's Center for Media, Religion and Culture invites you to apply to join our upcoming Counter-Media Residency cohort. We are seeking activists, artists, entrepreneurs, and scholar-practitioners for a residency that supports public-facing interventions for liberatory social change.
Media makers will join us for a year-long residency as part of our ongoing Religion in Emergent Media Spaces project. With support from the Henry Luce Foundation, this project is enabling a new wave of media research and production around religious imaginations, particularly through the exploration of what we call “counter-media.” Residents will join a vibrant, multi-disciplinary community at CU Boulder to develop their media practice and collaborate with other practitioners and visiting research fellows.
What is counter-media?
Counter-media is a concept-in-development that seeks to locate and explore imaginaries of communication and participation that open up liberatory futures. Through the exploration of counter-media, we seek avenues for communication that serve relationships and communities rather than the interests of dominant institutions. Through this residency program, we aim to deepen our understanding of counter-media and to broaden the impact of this transformative approach to making and encountering media, especially in relation to religious communities and spiritual experience.
Apply for a residency today
As a cohort member of the CMRC's Religion in Emergent Media Spaces project, you will:
- Receive $25,000 to support your creative work
- Produce provocative counter-media interventions that challenge received ideas around media, religion, and liberation
- Complete your residency remotely or in-person at CU Boulder from September 2025 to May 2026
- Participate in the CMRC’s weekly seminar—two hours each week during business hours, Colorado time
- Publish in our pamphlet series, RHYTHMS
- Collaborate with researchers and other media practitioners
To apply, please visit this form. It will ask you to provide the following:
- Resume or CV
- Link to online presence or portfolio
- Project proposal (800-1000 words)
Applications must be submitted before June 1, 2025 to be considered.
About the CMRC
The Center for Media, Religion and Culture (CMRC) is a flourishing convergence of scholars, students, and media practitioners. Our main point of connection is a weekly seminar that serves as an open space of collective study and insurgent learning. Our journal, RHYTHMS, provides a space to explore unconventional forms of writing and reflection.