Provincetown Community Compact

Nurturing Community

Sunset on the Dunes


Dune Shacks 2023

December 6, 2022

The Provincetown Compact Compact announces 2023 dune shack residency applications are now open. The Compact is pleased to offer residencies for C-Scape and Fowler Dune Shacks in the Cape Cod National Seashore. Residencies are available April through November for the general public (Community Residencies). Residency applications may be found at thecompact.org/dune-shacks.html. Applications close January 15, 2023. Community residencies are open to all and are selected by lottery.

The Compact will also designate a week this year for a Native American in collaboration with the Native Land Conservancy, and also initiate a voluntary Honor Tax for residents. This is an opportunity to move beyond land acknowledgement and offer financial support for the use of unceded land.

“An Honor Tax is a tangible way of honoring the sovereignty of the Wampanoag Nation. It is called a tax because it's not a gift or donation,” states Compact Director Jay Critchley. “We encourage other organizations and individuals to create an Honor Tax,” he added.

The Compact also offers three artist and two writers’ residencies in Fowler and C-Scape Dune Shacks. The top recipients of the Dune Shack Artist residency include three funded weeks in the C-Scape Dune Shack and a $500 fellowship. Artist residents are selected by a jury process.

Writers may apply for one of two one-week residencies funded by The Compact, chosen by lottery. Two additional writers' weeks are also available in collaboration with the Fine Arts Work Center.

The two historic dune shacks that The Compact manages, the Fowler and C-Scape Shacks, are among the nineteen shacks located within Peaked Hill Bars National Register Historic District of the Cape Cod National Seashore. The shacks are primitive — no electricity or indoor plumbing — and isolated, allowing for uninterrupted solitude and refuge. The Compact maintains and administers these shacks under an agreement with the Seashore.

The Provincetown Community Compact, Inc. (The Compact), celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2023, was established in 1993 as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization by artist Jay Critchley. It is organized as a community-building and philanthropic organization to support artists and the vitality of the community.

The mission of The Compact is to advance the health and cultural well being of the community of Provincetown and the Lower Cape – its people, the natural environment and the economy.

Additional initiatives include: The Swim For Life, the Think-ubator program, Prayer Ribbons and special community projects. The concept for The Compact was to recreate an inclusive, visionary and fully democratic contract with the community, reimagining the original Mayflower Compact, which was signed in Provincetown Harbor in 1620.

Application Forms:
Dune Shacks