Residencies Reflected details the changing residency sector

Residencies Reflected is a collection of new writing on artist residencies and mobility. The anthology is edited by curator and residency professional Irmeli Kokko.

Curator and editor Francesca Bertolotti-Bailey describes how residency activities have changed in recent years from a culture that idealises mobility and internationality to an atmosphere that emphasises slow travel where stopping and staying still is a luxury. Still, artist residencies are places where alternative and experimental lifestyles can be developed, implemented, and tested.

Bailey takes a critical look at residency activities in the Residencies Reflected collection of articles.

The collection chronicles the change in the residency sector. The editor of the collection, Irmeli Kokko, highlights the various factors behind the change and points out how the modernist idea of a cosmopolitan actor in the art world has been called into question in an era of ecological crisis and a world of wars and pandemics. According to Kokko, the change is reflected in the identity of residencies as well. The anthology asks how residencies and their key concepts – time, space, place, community, and mobility – are activated to reflect current realities.

“Each institution must consider its own duties: What is the role of this institution in today’s society and in the world in general?”, she says.

Residencies Reflected is based on the My Journey, Knowledge and Exchange symposium organised in 2021 at the Saari Residence, which brought together experts, artists and researchers who write about residencies.

The need for the symposium was evident: While the residency sector and writing about it is a relatively young phenomenon, the sector is undergoing rapid changes.

Kokko details the connection of residencies to the global political upheavals of the 20th century.

“The residency sector itself emerged in the late 1980s. At that time, its formation was influenced by the collapse of the Soviet Union, freedom of movement, the Schengen Agreements and the strengthening of the EU.”

However, the institution of residency has a longer history behind it. Kokko characterises its connection to artist communities that came together looking for collaboration opportunities and drawing on local resources.

“Residency activities have their roots in 19th-century artists’ colonies in Europe and the United States, for example. A new movement of residencies sprang up in Europe and the United States in the 1990s, with the activities taking shape to meet the needs of that time. This was influenced, for example, by trends in site-specific and public art as well as by international networking in itself, which was a phenomenon that permeated the entire society.”

Changing residencies

Kokko has a long-term perspective on the history of Finnish residency activities. She was involved in the founding of the Helsinki International Artist Program (HIAP) in the late 1990s and has followed the residency sector closely for decades.

According to Kokko, residency activities have always been characterised by a certain kind of freedom. Residencies bring together artists and other actors from around the world. Working in them does not involve strong pressure to produce results, but rather it is possible to implement plans freely or to move forward without heavy expectations.

Kokko explains how societal changes affect residencies, which in themselves are some kind of research hubs and places for searching for something new.

“The pandemic had a sharp impact on the activities because international mobility stalled for two years. More than half of the world’s residency activities closed down. The war in Ukraine also affected the situation. According to the organisation Artists at Risk, about 500 residency programmes in Europe and the United States opened their programmes to refugee artists.”

The stagnation of mobility for residencies during the pandemic gave rise to new kinds of activities. In Residencies Reflected, researcher Miriam La Rosa (PhD) writes about virtual mobility. It was used to create collaboration resembling residencies between actors who were physically not able to work in the same place.

In Kokko’s view, changing mobility is connected to the way of telling the history of art. From the Residencies Reflected collection, she highlights an article by the Catalan researcher Pau Catà, in which Catà examines the story of art from the perspective of North African mobility.

“We act as if the mobility of people working in the poetic field is a Western phenomenon. However, our perception of art has been formed over centuries in this society: It is only relative. Art history has focused on the Western narrative about art, what art is, how it is made and by whom as well as on the Western perception of artistic identity in general. The text by Catà is alternative art history.”

The importance of writing

Residencies Reflected describes how the residency sector affects the making of art and thus the entire art field. The impact can be surprisingly large. In residencies, artists draw on local influences, discussions and peer networks. All of this is reflected in art.

However, the impact of residencies is easily overshadowed if it is not deciphered to the public at large. Kokko thinks that writing about art can be an essential link between residencies, audiences and art.

“Writing about art is much more than describing the works”, Kokko points out. “With the traditional way of writing based on institutions, canons and hierarchies, it is not possible to reach the essential spirit related to the creation processes of art.”

According to Kokko, the deciphering of the different processes will be emphasised even more in the future, with the significance of different places and the changing mobility of artists affecting the shaping of the works.

“The duration of a residency can be 3 months, 6 months or 12 months. During that time, the artist explores topics such as how climate change affects us through the artist’s personal solutions. A mere description of the works cannot reach this experiential quality they have. That is why we need writing that describes the influences behind the works, the process of their creation and the experiential impact of the works.”

You can read a flipbook version of Residencies Reflected on this page.

You can order a print copy of Residencies Reflected from the Mousse Publishing online store.