OPEN CALL: Nida Art Colony Individual Residencies 2022/2023

Nida Art Colony is seeking applications for its international residency programme in 2022 and 2023 from participants working in a wide range of disciplines.

Application deadline: 9 January 2022 Midnight EET (Helsinki)

The residency programme at Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (NAC) grants selected participants the opportunity to live and work in Nida, Lithuania for a period of between two and five months. The programme’s goal is to provide undisturbed time and space for residents to focus, and through exchange, gain insight, broaden, and diversify their outlook.

The programme has the capacity to host up to five participants at a time. NAC regularly works with artists, curators, designers, architects with links to and a focus on history, ecology, politics, and social sciences. The programme is open to designers, architects, and curators, as well as practitioners working with performing arts, sound, material research/craft, and film. In addition, proposals for a residency by professionals from other fields are always welcome. The NAC residency programme is not open to BA or MA students. The residency does not offer or facilitate exhibitions or studio visits on a regular basis, but participants are welcome to propose formats and activities beneficial for their work acknowledging the specific context of NAC.

NAC is located in a unique UNESCO World Heritage Site, surrounded by the particular and distinct landscape of the Curonian spit: forest, sand dunes, a freshwater lagoon, and the sea. NAC is a subdivision of Vilnius Academy of Arts and in addition to the international artist-in-residency programme, it organises art and research projects, exhibitions and hosts students’ seminars.

Living and working conditions

NAC hosts up to five residents at a time. Each resident of the programme is provided with a 65m2 live/work space equipped with basic kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and workspace facilities. Full access is given to the communal spaces such as the reading room and the workshops with weaving looms, ceramic kiln, laser cutting, basic wood and metalworking tools, basic photo, video and sound equipment, silkscreen, and a hand printing press. In addition, participants are invited to work with naturally seasoned, Neringa-sourced, timber logged over the past two winters and stored on-site at NAC.

Duration

Two to five months: March–September 2022 and April–May 2023.

Residencies begin on the 1st of the month and are conducted in full month periods.

Costs

Accommodation costs are 400Eur/month, including all taxes, use of equipment, WiFi, communal spaces, and bicycles. If necessary, selected candidates are issued a letter of support for individual grant-seeking.

Application requirements

(1) Completed application form;
(2) Portfolio, sample of work, or publications (selection of 3–5 relevant projects);
(3) Current CV (max. 2 A4 pages);
(4) Submit all documents in PDF format, in a single file, in the order listed above using the following title: ‘Full Name_ R’.

Submit all documents to: residency@nidacolony.lt

Selection criteria and process

Applications are assessed by the NAC team, a member of the NAC board, or an external practitioner with an extended knowledge of NAC, such as former resident or participant in previous artistic programmes of NAC. Selected applicants will be informed early-February 2022.

Evaluations are based on the applicants’ submitted materials according to the following criteria:

– professional artistic practice, relevant experience in showing and discussing work in public;

– necessity of conducting work at a solitary space such as Nida;

– impact of spending time in Nida for one’s general practice.

Payment

You are required to pay for your residency no later than two months before the residency start date* . You are required to pay for the consecutive months of your residency one month in advance. In case of missed payments, NAC reserves the right to offer the residency slot to another participant.

Cancellation and refunds

Where possible, we always prefer to reschedule the residency, however if you have already paid and your plans change we have the following cancellation policy:

– Full refund minus bank charges if you inform us two months prior to the start of your residency*;

– 50% refund if you inform us one month prior to the start of your residency*;

– No refund if you inform us less than one month prior to the start of your residency*.

The same policy applies in case of cancellation of the subsequent residency months. Rescheduling is possible if you inform us no later than two months prior to the start of your residency* and two months prior to the start of the subsequent residency months.

Refunds are made within two weeks of cancellation. Please take into consideration that funds can only be returned to the account they were paid from.

* The start of your residency is not your arrival date, but the first day of the month.

If you have any other enquiries please do not hesitate to contact us at
residency@nidacolony.lt