Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper will examine the world-wide explosion of artist residencies and diversity of forms over the last 2 decades, from traditional institutional models of patronage and seclusion to contemporary forms of social practice projects making art with local communities to explore contemporary global concerns including mass migration, climate change and conflict. Offering a broad ranging typology of residencies as social form, this paper examines the historical contexts, stakeholder motivations and the social value versus the potential for harm of these creative interventions in the public realm. The paper first examines the social roots of residencies through artist colonies, communes and retreats developed through patronage and new social economies. Next, the paper examines the relationship between artistic, institutional and community motivations alongside the social aims and the potential for harm when outsider artists are invited to engage with communities not their own. Finally, in the ‘social turn’ in residencies theorised by examining a spectrum of contemporary international artist residency programs from the on the move “itinerant and transnational artist” lifestyle and the recent return to the “localvore” with artists seeking a more sustainable approach by merging life and practice.