OPEN CALL! Narva Art Residency (NART) is announcing its next open call for residencies in 2024. This time NART offers a dozen residencies in the main program and 3 funded places for creating public space installations in the European-Russian border city of Narva. Deadline is on 30 September.
Narva Art Residency is a unique cultural space that operates thanks to a collaboration between the Estonian Academy of Arts, Narva Gate, and the Estonian Ministry of Culture. NART initiates and facilitates residencies, art exhibitions, public events of many kinds, and hosts educational activitites. It is a vibrant centre which welcomes a multitude of visitors and guests and has become close with the Narva community. There is a short video about NART here. The creative centre also goes beyond its walls with the projects like Kreenholm garden and the Narva Venice Embassy experiment.
The residency is located on the Estonian-Russian border city of Narva. Due to its location and the current geopolitical situation, the city has become a point of attention and as well a place where Ukrainian refugees enter Europe. NART is in the historic Kreenholm area which came about when a textile manufacturing company was founded in the mid-19th century. It was once the largest of its kind in Europe and Russia. Now it stands vacant but has become a source of inspiration for artists and a space allowing experiments. NART is housed in a historic villa, which was once home to the director of factory.
The international artist-in-residence program is open for artists and creatives operating across all arts – visual arts, music, performance, architecture, design, film, literature, and curatorial practices etc. The program aims to generate creative exchange between practitioners as well as strengthen ties with the local context. Artists are invited to make interactive, socially engaged, and/or community-based work which are relevant also to the locals of Narva. The engagement can be an event, a workshop or a showing of the final results but even better if the engagement is already intertwined into the process of artmaking itself. The planned practice should be outlined in the application form. For example, in 2023 Danish artist Kristian Sverdrup and his team created an artistic bus stop bench, German artist Elke Renate Steiner held two comics workshops every week of her residency, Japanese duo Reico Motohara and Kabo invited locals to cook together with them.
Open space and vibrant community
The residency offers free private accommodation, common working space, a shared kitchen and shared washing facilities, and access to the Kreenholm factory. Residents get help to reach out to communities for creating meaningful connections.
NART aspires to be an open institution in various ways and also opens up the residents’ work. Some residents are invited to give a lecture and a seminar for students of the Estonian Academy of Arts. We encourage the residents to leave a version of their work to the Narva Art Residency building or surroundings. This will help the future residents to learn about the work of previous artists and it will help the staff to introduce it to the various guests who pass by the institution. The building is an open space and a vibrant community where one can pop into exhibitions guests, groups that come for house tours, seminars that use the halls, art academy students who come for workshops, participants of our public events etc.
Open call for two types of residencies
NART has several collaborations and projects that are planned for 2024. Two residencies are funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation for Finnish or Finland-based artists. One residency is done in collaboration with the Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England. We hope to continue with the Narva Venice Embassy project, the residency of Kreenholm Garden, and the Narva children’s literature residencies. For those, artists are selected through separate calls.
This open call is for finding artists for two types of residencies:
1. The main programme of residencies which includes about dozen spots.
2. Three residencies for creating public space installatsions.
NART main programme fosters residencies of approximately 1 to 2 months. Both single artists and artistic duos are welcome. Applicants can be from any country around the world, including Estonia. Applicants will be selected by an invited jury. NART will contact successful applicants by the end of October 2023 who will then confirm the time of stay at the residency. The selected artists of the main programme are asked to sign a contract and pay the advance payment of 300€ to secure the place. The payment will be returned to them upon arrival, or in case the residency is cancelled earlier than 3 months before the starting date. The prepayment is not returned only in the case of late cancellation.
The residencies of the main program do not involve financial obligations or support. NART gives a letter of confirmation for artists who apply for outsourced funds. Residents have the possibility to propose exhibitions or events for NART gallery spaces. We can offer the space for free, but finances and production need to be provided by the artists.
Three artists or creative duos are offered funded residency places to create sculptural artworks, or urban installations in the public spaces of Narva. These residencies give the possibility to delve deeper into community action through physically visible artworks that get the attention of new audiences. We hope that the urban interventions will bring curious ideas and will invoke discussions on the role of art in public space. It has been recently a hot topic as the Soviet monuments have become recontextualized in the light of the war. Artists are invited to give a workshop for local youth during their stay in Narva. There will be three additional mentors involved who will give their support to the three selected artists or duos.
These three residencies last from 1 July until 29 August, and come with a 25€ allowance per day (previously it was mistakenly written 35€ per day), travel budget, and a 1000€ budget for production. The program is part of a European-funded project under the Creative Europe program. Therefore, participating artists of this program must legally reside/live in one of the 40 Creative Europe countries (see the list here) except Estonia. Contracts with the artists are signed in early October.
Application process
The available residency periods are the following. In some cases exceptions are possible. The final dates are agreed upon with the selected artists and may vary for the list below.
● 7 January – 29 February
● 1 February – 17 March
● 18 March – 5 May
● 6 May –30 June
● 1 April –19 May
● 1 June – 30 June
● 1 July –29 August (funded residency programme of public urban installations)
● 30 August – 20 October
● 18 November– 31 December (exact end date will be specified)
● 1 December – 12 January 2025
For applying, please fill out the designated application form which can be downloaded here:
The form should be filled in English. Then it should be uploaded through the Google Form system here:
https://forms.gle/tHZ5tejhXi3CyijQA
The deadline for applications is set for 30 September 2023 at 23:59 (Estonian time). We only accept applications that use the designated form and are uploaded as one complete file including the examples of work. We do not accept applications that are sent via email.
More information: residentuur@artun.ee.