OPEN CALL:Digital & Textile Storytelling Residency 2018

Art Inside Out is offering a six week residency for three artists in the fall of 2018, with all expenses paid. It is an opportunity to work with digital and textile narratives around an extensive archival material about the village of Aeskhult in Kungsbacka municipality (Sweden).

The residency’s starting point is the history of Aeskhult and the stories and facts associated with the site. What stories does this village tell? How do we tell the story of Aeskhult? What details have been highlighted at different times and what is relevant and interesting to pay attention to today?

Digital and textile storytelling in Aeskhults Village
Through the artistic activation of the site and the stories and artifacts connected to Aeskhult, the residency turns into a laboratory. Aeskhult village becomes a context that allows for reflection about the past and the present, but also about the way history is written. There is an extensive archival material available for the artists to work from, both in the form of artifacts from the village (now stored at Halland’s Museum of Cultural History), a variety of photographs, written stories and other material.

The residency is interested in digital and textile narratives. Digital content is a core element in many audio-visual ways of expression, such as film, VR and other relevant techniques. Textile narrative is part of Aeskhult’s history and it can also be combined with the digital.

At the end of the residency there will be public presentations of the artistic processes, on site in Kungsbacka municipality and also in other places in Halland County and Sweden. Various presentations of the process will occur also during the entire residency period.

The residency takes place during the autumn of 2018, with the following schedule: September 3 to 16 (2 weeks of research), October 1 to 21 (3 weeks of production), November 5 to 11 (1 week of final presentation). The artists will be given the opportunity to work independently or/and together.

Each artist will receive a grant of 60,000 SEK for a six-week residency. Art Inside Out will cover all travel costs, and provide the chosen artist with accommodation and work space. The residency’s production budget is 100,000 SEK in total.

Apply by February 28, 2018 via the application form here.
Decisions will be announced in March 2018.

An experienced facilitator as support
Jesper Norda is an artist and composer with extensive experience from artistic work in digital media. He has a particular interest in contemporary art in relation to collections and archives. Jesper Norda will function as the facilitator during the entire residency period, and support the artists in their creative processes.

Aeskhults Village
Aeskhults village is a unique historical place in Sweden. There was a settlement on site in the Bronze Age, and an ancient road went straight through the village. The preserved houses in the village gained their present appearance in the period 1750-1850. The village was preserved for the afterworld by forming a foundation in the 1960s, after the death of village’s last inhabitants.

By the end of the 19th century, the village had about 40 inhabitants. Around the turn of the 1900s most of the village youths traveled to America. Many of these were never heard of again. But some of the emigrants returned and lived the rest of their lives in the village, until the mid-1960s.

In the 1990s, the whole village with all the surrounding properties was bought by the West Coast Foundation to be protected as a reserve. It was followed by a reconstruction of the landscape back to as it was before the 19th century’s major changes in agriculture in Sweden. During the same period, major restoration efforts were made on the settlement.

Aeskhults village has an interesting history, linking to questions and issues that are relevant even today.

Read more about Aeskhult here.