two-week rural desert residency

Wonder Mountain Open Source Space Residency welcomes LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC artists and creators to an immersive two-week program offered year-round. This residency embraces a wide spectrum of visionaries—writers, visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, performers, designers, digital innovators, cultural workers, community builders, healers, curators, scientists, and multidisciplinary makers of all kinds. We also encourage groups and collectives to apply, as well as those who wish to facilitate community-engagement workshops. Set in the wide-open desert landscape of Wonder Valley, California—just a short drive from Joshua Tree National Park—our space offers both stillness and inspiration. Here, creators can step away from the noise, reflect and reset, nurture bold new ideas, and reconnect with the elemental cycles of nature and cosmos.

We encourage artists and writers seeking a quiet and inspiring rural desert environment to apply to Wonder Mountain Open Source Space. Our space is surrounded by the plants and creatures of the Mojave: Yucca brevifolia is indigenous to the region and isn’t found anywhere else in the world. Come see the desert flowers in bloom as the meteor showers explode in the darkness and stillness of Wonder Valley. Wonder Mountain Open Source Space encourages creative professionals of all backgrounds to apply for admission. The space is centered on principles of self-reflexive artistic practice that embraces the healing elements of the land as a site of reciprocal action. We envision an aesthetics of generosity, compassion, and an astral breadth of scope that seeks to nourish the creative spirit in all producers who venture to travel here.

The space is located on the traditional ancestral homelands of the Serrano, Cahuilla, Chemehuevi and Mohave (Mojave) indigenous communities, the land that encompasses what’s known as so-called Joshua Tree National Park, Twentynine Palms, and Wonder Valley.

We at Wonder Mountain Open Source Space acknowledge the Serrano, Cahuilla, Chemehuevi and Mohave (Mojave) indigenous people, the traditional custodians of this land. We recognize the ongoing impact of colonization and displacement on Indigenous communities. We honor their deep connection to this place and their enduring stewardship of the land and waters.