Sallie Mae’s Garden Residency
Black Atlantic Creative Residency in Salvador, Brazil
Sallie Mae's Garden is a self-funded, selective residency in Salvador, Bahia, sponsored by Atlantic Archives. It hosts one resident at a time in a light-filled top-floor sanctuary featuring a sea-view balcony, an extensive physical and digital Black Atlantic repository, and foundational tools for writing, visual art, and sound.
The residency offers time, space, and research resources to design, launch, or complete your project, and every resident contributes one piece of work to Atlantic Archives’ transnational journal, From Below. The residency is named for Sallie Mae Miles of Bennettsville, SC, and it continues a lineage of Black working-class memory.
About the Residency
The experience
For the length of your session, the penthouse suite and repository are entirely yours. Days are self-directed: wake to coastal light, work, read, walk to the sea, and return to your project on your own rhythm. A warm orientation and a single project consultation serve as your only fixed commitments. The residency is tailored for self-reliant practitioners who thrive in an environment deeply connected to their subject matter rather. Sessions run seven or ten nights on a rolling schedule, with curated periods across the season.
Who it is for
The residency is designed for artists, writers, scholars, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, archivists, journalists, designers, organizers, and cultural and community workers whose practice engages Black Atlantic histories and contemporary life. The ideal resident has an active project underway, works well independently, and aligns with the residency’s core themes. Emerging, mid-career, and established practitioners are equally welcome.
Why Salvador
Salvador holds one of the largest Black populations outside the African continent, making its history, rhythm, and living culture essential to the questions driving this residency. Operating as a transparent extension of Sed Miles, Ph.D.’s studio practice and Atlantic Archives initiative, Sallie Mae’s Garden offers a space where living, research, and creation naturally align. The top-floor suite is a tested creative location, having anchored multiple Atlantic Archives transnational projects.
Here, the city becomes a landscape to think, move, and create alongside. You are invited to set your own pace—waking to the sound of the ocean, diving into deep research in the repository, and grounding your practice in a city where Black Atlantic history lives in every street and breeze. Supported by local foundational resources and an English-language historical orientation to Pelourinho, your time in Salvador offers an unparalleled environment for sustained focus, inspiration, and genuine connection to place.
Black Women Radicals Curation
Black Women Radicals is proud to curate Sallie Mae’s Garden Library, a decolonial and radical repository consisting of one-of-a-kind books, texts, and literature by Black authors, artists, activists, and archivists around the world. Residents get to engage with texts in both Brazilian Portuguese and English that interrogate the historical, political, and cultural landscape of Salvador. Moreover, the library is both for newcomers to Salvador and those who are more familiar with the city and allows for the exploration of how Black communities in Brazil and across the Black Atlantic have engaged in multiform struggles for freedom, human rights, social justice, and equality.
Multidisciplinary in nature and curated in the ethos and praxis of Black feminist internationalism and Pan-African solidarity, the library is organized by the following subjects: Brazil and Afro-Latin American Studies, Black Political Thought, Black Internationalism, Black Feminisms, Visual Arts and Photography, Field Research Methodologies, Black Literature, Children’s Books, Comics, and Media and Ephemera.
“Sallie Mae’s Garden Library is a testament to the transnational, feminist, and Pan-African praxis and labor of Atlantic Archives, who, for more than a decade, has done the important work of building radical and transnational solidarities, bridges, and memories between Black Brazilians and Black Americans.”
–– Jaimee A. Swift, Founder and Executive Director, Black Women Radicals
Featured selections in the library include:
Negras in Brazil: Re-Envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity by Kia Lilly Caldwell
Candomblé, Photographs by José Medeiros
Histórias Afro-Atlânticas: Antologia, edited by Adriano Pedrosa, Amanda Carneiro e André Mesquita
Africans in Brazil: A Pan-African Perspective by Abdias do Nascimento
Reinventing the Culture of Womanhood in America and Brazil by Alex H. Westfried
Domestic Workers of the World Unite!: A Global Movement for Dignity and Human Rights by Jennifer N. Fish
But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies, edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith
Organizações de Resistência Negra by Ilê Aiyê
Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth Century Brazil by Paulina L. Alberto
Inside Cuba, Photographs by Gianni Basso/Vega MG
Negritude Women by T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting
Studio & Included Resources
Your fee covers full, self-directed access to the penthouse suite, including one bedroom, one bathroom, full kitchen, washing machine, living room, writing area, private ocean-view balcony, physical library, and The Atlantic Archives Digital Library.
Also included in your session:
Visual art studio and sound and recording hardware, keyboard and percussion instrument.
Gym and yoga equipment.
A 45-minute project consultation with Dr. Sed Miles and Dr. Jaimee Swift.
A guided English-language historical orientation to Pelourinho.
Arrival and living guides for Salvador.
(Note: Residents cover their own airfare, transit, meals, and specialized production supplies. Full house policies, accessibility details, and equipment lists are reviewed during the interview stage.)
Sessions & Investment
A 30% deposit secures your dates upon acceptance. February festival stays offer a dynamic, vibrant urban setting during Salvador's major street celebrations.
Application Process & Archive Contribution
We accept applications on a rolling basis from artists, scholars, and cultural workers (age 21+) across all career stages.
Submit Application: A 20-minute form detailing your project, practice, and portfolio links.
Interview: Shortlisted applicants are invited to a 45-minute video interview to discuss fit, house details, and logistics.
Acceptance & Session: Confirmed residents receive full welcome dossiers and policy agreements.
Archive Contribution: Within 30 days post-residency, residents contribute one original work (essay, photos, audio, zine, or research notes) to the Atlantic Archives. You retain 100% copyright; Atlantic Archives receives a credited, non-exclusive license.
Apply to Sallie Mae's Garden
Applications are open on a rolling basis for the 2026–2027 season. Because the suite hosts one resident at a time to maintain a focused sanctuary, capacity is strictly limited.