Tom Bubul .info

tom.bubul@gmail.com, @tombubul. Last modified .

Current status

Jan 19 2026: Both applications are currently closed, and I think everyone who has been in touch should now have heard back from me. I'm moved by the interest and excited to see what will happen with what is shaping up to be a killer year one cohort. :)

Call for residency and keyholder applications

The three paths you're normally permitted to travel when you own a weird little house are: live in it, rent it out, or sell it. At mine, I'm stubbornly exploring off-trail possibilities in the wilderness of "non-commercial project space."

A clubhouse is extremely hard to find, so I want to figure out how to make it work, which includes accepting that I can't do it alone. So as I look toward sustainability and increased activation in the long-term, I'm opening my door a small crack to applications for an initial season of residency and keyholder curatorial programs for 2026.

1. Residency

Residents will visit the Twin Cities to live in the house, one at a time, for negotiable periods of time, from 2-8 weeks. The space is particularly suitable at present to writers and non-space-intensive practices.

The initial residency season will run from April through October 2026. There are no specific expectations around how residents use the time, interact with my or their own wider communities, or the Twin Cities in general, though we can work together to produce an appropriate semi-public presentation of work if/as desired (e.g. a screening, reading, slides night, zine release, etc.).

You will be required to hang out with me at the beginning ("greetings") and end ("how'd it go / suggestion box") of your stay, plus optionally as desired, but otherwise it's residency rules; come see us out here, it's your time to use.

It's my wish to provide the type of opportunity that would have been positive and accessible to me if I were to apply to it as a 24 year old, and equally one that would be interesting and valuable to me if I were to apply to it today, at 42. The former relates to positive encouragement and consolidation of practice, at a time in life highly characterized by low resources; the latter relates to a strong appetite for inspiring, peer-level exchange in artist-run contexts, particularly when the ground is stable enough to really bear it out. As such, artists at any point on this spectrum are welcome to apply.

2. Keyholder curatorial programs

Keyholders will run ongoing/serial programs at a regular tempo in the space, and will already live in the Twin Cities metro. I'm looking for 1-2 keyholders for terms of at least six months. After season one, keyholders will be welcome to participate in managing the residency program as interest and availability allow.

I'm particularly interested in programming that facilitates small-scale, intimate interactions both among those gathered and between an audience and work. The main space is essentially a small blackbox, and is decently set-up for hosting readings, screenings, performances, or similar, and I feel that it wants more activation than I am individually capable of providing. Are you out there? Please hmu

3. How to apply

It's best to ground an understanding of each of these programs as a form of collaboration between artists (i.e. between you and me, through the space), rather than as an asymmetrical interaction with an organization or institutional program (i.e. between you and the space, through me). That's to say, I'm not representing some larger thing; I'm an individual artist with a space, a set of values, operating within a tradition, etc., looking for synergies.

Residents: Please send me a breezy little email with some links I can check out; a little about yourself and your work, where you live, and some explanation of how you found me if we don't know each other already. Please indicate whether or not you are able to pay for your time (see below), noting as always that those who can make this program available for those who can't.

Keyholders: Same general application, but please substitute in your program pitch.

4. Process

All applications will be considered at once on January 17th, after which everyone can expect to hear from me, then on a first come first serve basis from there. I will keep this page updated if guidance changes or the application closes.

Select residency applicants can expect follow-up video calls, and probably all keyholder applicants to meet me irl for coffee or something to discuss.

All applicants are asked to understand that I am one person with a day job and a million other things to do, and that this is both an intuitive process and a labor of love. :)

5. About the plant

It's a small, fully-featured house, highly suitable to quiet solo living, with a small courtyard and a sunny, rather private strip of back yard great for growing tomatoes. The first floor has a highly functional galley kitchen with a built in desk; I spent much of 2023 on the phone and/or the computer and/or cooking here. In the front of the house is a sparsely-furnished living room/blackbox space (about 240 square feet across two joined rooms), and a mudroom facing the street. Upstairs is a single loft room with a dormer ceiling, a bathroom, and a small storage area. Downstairs is a basement with typical basement features. The house is not presently wheelchair accessible.

The house is located in the city of Minneapolis, in the southwest quadrant of the Twin Cities, in the upper midwest of the United States. There's incredible bike infrastructure here, massive amounts of delicious food (notably Ethiopian, Vietnamese, and Hmong), ready access to nature, and a palpable intergenerational local DIY spirit, particularly visible on May Day. The space and its programs are connected to a friendly and ever-widening community that includes artists and artist-run projects of all kinds.

6. Associated costs

With the minimal state of the program in this alpha round in mind, the only associated costs will be those associated with carrying the space for the time of residency. Those monthly costs are city taxes ($200), water/trash/heat/elec/internet ($150), maintenance ($150), and insurance ($100). This adds up to $600/mo, or $150/week. This cost is not a requirement of residency and is only requested of those able to pay it.

Keyholder costs at this time will be very minimal and case-by-case, with a primary view to facilitating interesting activations of the space.

There is no present cost associated with applying to either program.

7. Future

My future goals for the space include:

The space is already zoned for commercial use, but there is likely a long way to go with all of this, and it's pretty much all outside of my wheelhouse. If you're reading this and feel that any of this is within yours, and you wish to help me get things from here to there, please reach out.

8. Questions, other, etc.

Rather than try to anticipate other questions or touch all considerations here, I'm gonna stop and just say, if I'm missing anything essential in the above, please feel free to reach out, and I'll update this page accordingly. In all cases my email is the same.

Thank you to Bela, Colleen, Hannah, Jacob, John, Mark, and Natalie for helpful feedback. :)

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