This page captures some of the responses to issues of care and support in the context of artist residencies, explored during the Building A Better Residency conversation event. The initial prompts offered to the room for discussion included the following questions:
- If you could design a residency for yourself, what would it look like?
- What does a person-centred residency look like?
- If we imagine a residency as inviting someone into your home, what does that look like?
- What does support from the host organisation look like?
- What does care look like in my own process in/around residencies?
- A need for physical space: what supports well-being and safeguarding (in that space)?
Click here to return to the main overview of the day.
| Curatorial support: recommending collaborators and planning help | Trust! | Can this be an active effort from orgs to be anti-capitalist? Even if it’s virtue-signalling, I literally don’t care – take away deadline pressure and 9-5ness |
| Re: home. Welcoming from the heart. No British politeness. Organisers gotta feel like family. | Focus on active care. Just because you tell me it’s a ‘safe space’ doesn’t mean you’ve created one | How do healthy boundaries exist within reactive care and support? |
| Flexibility on how 1 week or short residencies can be used i.e. 1 or 2 days over X weeks rather than over one week in a block | Anti-classist approach as some people are more privileged and can afford to take time off for residencies | Being in control of time frames / when you work and feeling safe to ask for support |
| This may be silly but food and home are connected. I have felt very at home when there is a good kitchen + great separate food budget which doesn’t come out of my fee. HAPPY BELLY > HAPPY ARTIST > ABUNDANT CREATIVITY | Do residency models come with an expectation of having no commitments outside being an artist? Limiting who can be involved | How do we fight capitalist workforce? More access for folks who can ‘step out’ of more structured jobs |
| TRUST IN THE ARTIST TO WORK AT THEIR OWN PACE. NO EXPECTATIONS | Flexibility with support modes and comms modes. Voicenote, calls, zoom, in person chats etc. | Good comms consent. Ask what’s needed in advance in terms of support, advice. Mentoring. Being on hand during. |
| Welcome neurodiverse artists! Disabled / older artists | Leave me to get on with it! | How does structured support limit care and support? |
| Coaching / mentoring advice – lots of artists, particularly marginalised artists, just don’t know what they don’t know | Healthcare support for artists who need / or offering to help (mentally/physical) | Wellbeing is flexible residencies. £ / w disability / day access Flexible timescale + approaches to wellbeing Wellbeing contact |
| BetOnest in E Germany Model. – 25 people mostly queer – communal shared living – subsidised residencies – sharing practice nightly – v. remote – share skills with each other – morning meditation w/shop |