How do frameworks for artist residency enable institutions to engage with the social, political and ecological realities that shape them – and in doing so, expand the paradigms of artistic practice?
Join us for an evening presentation by Bruno Alves de Almeida (Brooks International Fellow at Tate), followed by a conversation with Georgina Kennedy (Curator: Communities, Tate St Ives).
Bruno will share his Brooks Fellowship research with Tate St Ives, supporting the development of its residency-based Artists Programme within the reimagining of Barbara Hepworth’s Palais de Danse. His talk explores residencies as site-symbiotic frameworks, systems of exchange between artists, institutions, their contexts and communities. Symbiosis means “living together”: a form of co-existence where different organisms mutually influence one another. Likewise, a site-symbiotic residency proposes a dynamic system of reciprocity, sometimes harmonious and mutually beneficial, other times ambivalent, generating forms of productive friction.
The research investigates how residencies can act as “sensing membranes”, increasing the permeability of art institutions to the social, political, and ecological realities that surround them, and conversely enabling contexts and communities to shape artistic and institutional practices.
At a time when cultural institutions face growing scrutiny over their societal relevance and accountability, the research asks: Can the residency format offer valuable frameworks for civic connection and shared responsibility beyond the confines of the art world?
The presentation will include selected case studies from diverse contexts around the world, that critically examine the politics of locality, foster interdependence with their communities, blur boundaries between institution and public, process and presentation, and reimagine authorship, ownership, and access. It will conclude with an open discussion and reflection.
FREE, book here:
