There are no open calls for residencies at the moment!
The term residency, and especially artist residency, is many times the carrier of a concept that we do not find appropriate for the type of involvement we wish to generate in our place. We do not see the residency as a place where the artist/researcher/architect/etc. would withdraw, a creative retreat where the person is isolated and self-focused.
Anyway we don’t want to find another word but to re-claim the word residency which we found interesting as it is a chronotope (using Mikhail Bakhtin word, coined in 1973) – it contains a spatial dimension (meaning the concrete place where the person is hosted) and at the same time a temporal dimension (recalling a defined period of time in which the person is hosted). Other words do not have this quality, some (as guesthouse) refer much more to a specific space, others (as sojourn) refer to a period of time. Residency is here intended as a permeable space – that reacts, reflects and cares for what it has around it – and as an expandable time – guests can prolong their stay, return and start to build, through time, a relation with the place.
In September 2021, Robida organised a symposium titled Care of Margins where 30 artists, architects, curators, researchers from different European countries discussed the idea of an artist residency in the village of Topolò. The symposium opened fertile, urgent questions about existing models of artist residencies in marginal areas especially regarding the relation between the artists, the place and its community and concerning the facilities a residency needs in terms of space.Through rethinking the new residency together, and collectively writing/drawing/sketching, we formulated the curatorial and architectural first steps toward this new project, starting from our common values.Some main reflections of the symposium concerned terms as reciprocity – the artists should be involved in the seasonal rhythms of the community, sharing resposibilities with its members, care – the sense of care within artists’ works is expressed through their cyclical coming-back and long-term work, boundaries & integration – between the life/rhythms of the hosts and needs of the artists, community – not to consider as community only people permanently living in Topolò but to extend the definition to those who have an affection to the place and dedicate care to it, eco-system – the set of relations between people dwelling in the village (permanent inhabitants or guest artists) and the non-human inhabitants, the landscape, the different spaces of the village.Beside this, many architectural interesting points opened up. With the future goal of transforming an old house into a residency hosting artists the whole year long, discussion about shape, structure and content of the house followed. We want to intend the house as a toolbox that can be activated by the guests and imagine building the house as a part of the residency program itself.
The following artists, performers, architects, authors etc. temporarily lived in Topolove with us: Laura Savina, Urška Alič, Pearl River Sound, Katarina Gomboc Čeh, Marta Olivieri, Vera Borghini, Loredana Canditone, Kim Lang, Ola Korbańska, Jack Bardwell, Francesca Lucchitta, Elena Braida, Philipp Kolmann, Studio Wild, Janja Šušnjar, Lijuan Klassen, yoichi iwamoto, Benjamin Earl, Kirsten Spruit, Ajda Bračič, Anastasia Eggers, Olya Korsun, Heike Renée de Wit, Diffrakt collective, Suzanne Bernhardt, Studio Fludd collective, Rosario Talevi, Lorena Carras, Jean-Marie Dhur, Erika Mayr.
