Alum Lane Michael Stanley Receives coLAB Arts Residency to Work with Mission First Housing Group

Alum Lane Michael Stanley (M.F.A. 2020) has accepted a ten month long artist residency with coLAB Arts and Mission First Housing Group. Through this residency, Stanley will develop new works in collaboration with the communities at Mission First Housing Group's permanent supportive housing facilities.

Stanley, a filmmaker, artist and advocate, joins a cohort of other multidisciplinary artists who are working on their own projects with the support of coLAB Arts. The New Jersey-based organization champions socially-engaged and community-powered artwork. Stanley will spend their ten month coLAB Arts residency working with communities at Mission First Housing Group, a nonprofit providing safe and affordable housing in the Mid-Atlantic region. Through this residency, Stanley will build on their work and collaborations with people who have experienced homelessness, addiction or incarceration - work that they started here in Austin.

"While at UT, I spent two years engaging with people experiencing homelessness in downtown Austin, from leading workshops and recovery meetings to holding cold readings of scripts on street corners," Stanley shared. "During my final year, we read my play rain falls special on me [as part of UTNT (UT New Theatre)], which I developed through workshops at the Terrazas Branch Library and Angel House, and which was then produced by Ground Floor Theatre. My process of community-embedded work was very much developed at UT, and I'm thrilled to have the time and resources to focus on it full-time over the next ten months."

Visit Lane Michael Stanley's website to learn more about their recent and current projects.

A behind-the-scenes photo taken during the filming of Lane Michael Stanley's latest film, T. Photo by Meg Mead.