In 1860, the forty-year-old structure now known as the Sea Change Cottage was floated across Cape Cod Bay to the West End of Provincetown. Several other homes came across the Bay too, in a hasty migration from Long Point, that curling spit of land at the very tip of Massachusetts where harsh weather conditions and water scarcity finally forced its hale New England residents to pull up stakes.
Sea Change Cottage served as a bakery for the tiny Long Point settlement in its years across the bay. Today, this beautiful antique home serves as a unique retreat for artist and activists, women and men whose artistic visions for social change – through performance, writing, and the visual arts – are creating new possibilities and profound change in their respective communities and beyond. In a sense, Sea Change Cottage is still a bakery, providing an extraordinary “kitchen” for the remarkable talents and commitments of artists and activists across the generations.
Sea Change Residencies operates in partnership with the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) of Provincetown, a historic writers’ and artists’ community founded in 1968 and has since been at the heart of Provincetown’s cultural life.
FAWC staffers connect the Sea Change Resident to resources in Provincetown and work to integrate Residents into its community of artists and writers as fitting to each artist/activist’s needs.
A nominations committee consisting of accomplished artists, activists, non-profit leaders, and academics submits candidates for Sea Change Residencies to Gaea Foundation staff. Additionally, former Sea Change Residents are asked to submit one nomination following their residency.