The Playdate Residency

is a family-centered artist residency designed to support parenting and caregiving artists while integrating their creative practice with their family life.

It brings together Radiant Hall, Anthropology of Motherhood, Carlow University art students, and SQUAD Art Studio to create a collaborative, intergenerational model of artmaking.

At its core, the residency provides:

  • A 10-month supported studio residency for a caregiving artist, including mentorship, space, and resources to grow their practice while incorporating their child/dependent into the work

  • The development and facilitation of “Playdate” workshops—intergenerational, process-based art experiences where children and caregivers create together

  • A teaching and learning component, where Carlow students collaborate with the resident artist to co-design workshops, gain hands-on experience, and engage in community-based arts education

 
 

Brown Moon | Play Date

July 25, 10-12pm

KST Alloy Studios

5530 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, pa 15206

Brown Moon | Play Date invites children, caregivers, and community members of all ages—especially those ages 3–7—into a participatory experience exploring musical storytelling around the phases of the moon together. Blending shared activities, the experience encourages collective authorship, imagination, and reflection across generations.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if your child wasn’t just watching art happen—but helping make it?

If your answer is yes (or you’re simply curious), join multidisciplinary artist Melike Konur for Brown Moon, the second Play Date workshop in a three-part residency exploring what becomes possible when children are invited into the creative process as collaborators.

Created with and inspired by Melike’s own journey of making art alongside her son, Brown Moon PlayDate  invites children and caregivers—especially ages 3–7—into an imaginative, intergenerational experience inspired by the changing phases of the moon.

Together we’ll tell stories, play, imagine, create, and wonder. There are no perfect outcomes—only shared discovery, collective authorship, and the joy of making something together.

Come as you are. Bring your curiosity. Leave with a story only your family could have created.

Play Date is part of Anthropology of Motherhood and Radiant Hall's collaborative residency for caregiving creatives.

 
 
 

2026-2027

 

Image Description: Arist Melike Konour wears a deep royal blue dress and is reclined with a reflective expression, surrounded by glass vase art that is the same color as her dress.

Melike Konour

2026-2027 Artist-in-Residence

melikeonearth.com

“I am an interdisciplinary artist, cultural worker, and single parent. My practice moves across music, performance, research, and storytelling, and is grounded in memory, lineage, and care. I create work that listens deeply to histories carried in the body and voice, particularly those shaped by migration, matriarchal knowledge, and lived experience.

I am currently in the research phase of a music and new media project called Brown Moon. This work explores Afro-Turkish histories through sound, voice, and archival listening. Right now, my focus is on gathering material, shaping questions, and building the emotional and sonic foundation that will guide later stages of creation. It is slow work that asks for attention, patience, and uninterrupted time to listen and experiment.

As a parent of a nearly four-year-old, my creative practice and caregiving life are deeply intertwined. My son and I already draw together, sit side by side, and share moments of making. I am now seeking to develop a consistent rhythm where he understands when it is time for us to work together and when it is time for independent focus. This requires space, structure, and support to navigate the ebb and flow of interdependent working as a single parent.

Having dedicated studio space and guidance through this residency allow me to establish sustainable creative rituals with my child, explore sound and voice practices in a focused environment, and build a foundation for long-term work. Support at this stage is not only practical but transformational. It offers a way to honor both my role as an artist and my role as a mother without forcing one to eclipse the other.”

 

Image Description: A woman with wavy blonde hair smiles while looking to the side. She is wearing a pink ruffled top and she is sitting indoors with soft lighting and a plant behind her.

Marissa McClure Sweeny

Residency Mentor

SQUAD Art Studio

Marissa McClure Sweeny is a transdisciplinary educator, artist, and scholar working across early childhood, art and museum education, and feminist pedagogies. She serves as Director of the Online EdD Program in Art Education, Museum Education, and Visitor-Centered Curation at Florida State University.

Her collaborative arts-based research reconceptualizes childhood, caregiving, and creative practice through postdevelopmental and posthuman frameworks. This work centers the voices of young children and other historically marginalized communities.

She is founder of SQUAD Art Studio, an inter-generational community-based art studio for children and their caregivers and co-founder of The Scribble Squad, an international collective of motherartists and motherscholars. Marissa is a published author and editor whose work advances equity-driven, collaborative approaches to contemporary art across schools, museums, and community-based contexts.