OPEN CALL: Sponsored Art Residency In Rural Kenya

Addressing Non-Biodegradable Waste in Rural Kenya and its Townships. This is a call from Tafaria Center for the Arts. The Center was established 10years ago to, among other things, inspire social-economic, cultural and environmental transformation through the arts.
We observe that the rapid increase in the consumption of processed foods in rural Kenya and its townships has resulted in a staggering rise in non-biodegradable waste. With no waste management culture or infrastructure in place, plastics and glass are now visible everywhere, causing harm to our precious environment.
We are deeply concerned and determined to intervene through the the arts. As we celebrate our 10th anniversary of providing art residencies to local and international artists and having identified the above problem in our community, we are happy to invite visual creatives to submit proposals for a sponsored residency at Tafaria Center for the Arts and create solutions to sustainably address it.

Residency Objectives
We aim to collaborate with the local community to create innovative solutions that will:
1. Educate and sensitize rural communities on non-biodegradable waste management through the arts.
2. Design artistic concepts that promote long-term behavior change and sustainable practices.
3. Develop scalable solutions to effectively manage this problem in similar geographies.
4. Create participatory public installations that utilize the waste on a large scale.
5. Craft aesthetically appealing concepts that have strong affinity with local communities to inspire rapid adoption.

The art residency process
The selected artist(s) will embark on an extraordinary journey that includes:
1. A fully sponsored one-month art residency at Tafaria Center for the Arts, covering accommodation, meals, per diem, materials (with a preference for recycled materials), community access logistics, process documentation, and showcasing opportunities.
2. The residency will take the following approach:
• An immersive research phase within the local community,
• Ideation phase on application solutions
• Prototype development
• Installations in collaboration with community members.
3. Upon successful completion of this phase, it is expected that the artist(s) will take technical leadership in scaling the concept once the scaling funding has been secured.

Please note:
1. That this call is open to individual artists or collaborations of up to two artists.
2. Artists should on application indicate their preferred month of residency between August and November 2023.
3. This call is open to both local and international artists. Collaboration between local and international artists highly recommended.
4. That objective 1 & 2 above may entail collaboration with non-visual artists e.g. with performing artists etc, while 5 may include botanists
5. Application form is here: www.tafaria.com/arts
6. Further enquiries through thearts@tafaria.com
7. Deadline for applications is July 30th.

Duration of residency: 1 month – can be extended to 2months

Accommodation: private accommodation

Disciplines, work equipment and assistance: Visual artists/ sculpture

Studio / Workspace: private

Fees and support: accommodation, meals, materials and perdiem

Expectations towards the artist: as per the link

Application information: through this link