GROUP RESIDENCY
PLACE, PEOPLE and TIME: MICRO-MACRO
Collemacchia, Molise, Italy
Thurs 24 Oct – Thurs 31 Oct 2024

APPLICATION DEADLINE: one place available – apply now

The Museum of Loss and Renewal is delighted to invite applications for the Group Residency MICRO-MACRO, Italy.

The Group Residency is devised around the relationships of ‘place, people and time’ and residents will be welcomed to Collemacchia, in Italy’s Apennine Mountains and the National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise. The village has been home to Tracy Mackenna’s Italian family for centuries and the local community is highly supportive of The Museum of Loss and Renewal Residency Programmes.

MICRO-MACRO will be lead by Tracy Mackenna (The Museum of Loss and Renewal) working in partnership with Amanda Crabtree, Director and Lead Curator of artconnexion, France. Tracy and Amanda have in common expertise that includes internationally presented and tested approaches to the relationships between art, place, society and audiences and they work across gallery, museum, site-specific, participatory and socially engaged practices, mediation-production and commissioning.

Welcome to all of you interested in considering and developing approaches to art-making that respond to the desires and needs of place, people and time. This Group Residency will allow you to focus, make, think and be in experimental ways. It will immerse you in the history, and present and future conditions of the local community in the Apennine Mountains that are shaped by the Samnite and Roman occupations, by (return)migration and by today’s climate emergency. You will get up close to people, places, matter and materials and ideas, and step back to consider your own position in our rapidly changing world.

MICRO-MACRO is offered for practitioners and researchers working in all creative disciplines and for those who have a strong interest in the investigation of site and place. The group will comprise of approx. nine participants.

As an example of a site-specific Group Residency, see the activities and material generated during the Place, People and Time: WILD WAYS Group Residency, 2022

FOCAL POINTS

– Creative practices
– Interdisciplinarity
– Technologies
– Co-learning
– Individual practice
– Experimentation
– Semi-structured programme
– Expert facilitator/s and guest contributors
– Collective platform for encounters
– Supportive, caring, non-hierarchical environment
– Fully catered
– Immersive experience
– Relationships to land, connections through place
– Location specific
– Site(responsiveness)
– Cultural and environmental ecologies
– Memory (ecological, material, ruin)
– Imagining futures 
– Publics; participants and audiences

AIM

MICRO-MACRO will provide a partially-structured and hands-on programme of site-based ways of working that are shared to enable residents to develop their skills and understanding of how to investigate site as part of a creative practice and for public presentation to a global audience.

The programme is devised around a bespoke itinerary, with carefully crafted indoor sessions that focus on expanded approaches to discussion, presentation, making and sharing. Outdoor sessions will introduce residents to the stunning natural landscape and world-class archaeological sites. Utilising individual practices, residents from diverse cultures and creative disciplines will focus on different ways of responding to place through immersive, connected experience in site, land and weather.

Designed to be supportive, the partially-structured programme will enable residents to develop their skills, and understanding of place across a range of approaches and technologies. The residency experience will stimulate new ways of thinking and experimentation through production, research, co-learning and presentation. The programme will provide a framework and act as a catalyst for deepening observation and expanding awareness of the relationship between the non-human and human world.

MICRO-MACRO establishes global perspectives, understandings, protocols and (digital)methods for intercultural collaboration and enables residency participants to approach Collemacchia’s community and environment with care.

APPROACH

MICRO-MACRO will provide a partially-structured and hands-on programme of site-based ways of working that are shared to enable residents to develop their skills and understanding of how to investigate site as part of a creative practice and for public presentation to a global audience.

The programme is devised around a bespoke itinerary, with carefully crafted indoor sessions that focus on expanded approaches to discussion, presentation, making and sharing. Outdoor sessions will introduce residents to the stunning natural landscape and world-class archaeological sites. Utilising individual practices, residents from diverse cultures and creative disciplines will focus on different ways of responding to place through immersive, connected experience in site, land and weather.

Designed to be supportive, the partially-structured programme will enable residents to develop their skills, and understanding of place across a range of approaches and technologies. The residency experience will stimulate new ways of thinking and experimentation through production, research, co-learning and presentation. The programme will provide a framework and act as a catalyst for deepening observation and expanding awareness of the relationship between the non-human and human world.

MICRO-MACRO establishes global perspectives, understandings, protocols and (digital)methods for intercultural collaboration and enables residency participants to approach Collemacchia’s community and environment with care.

WAYS OF WORKING

Facilitators and residents, from diverse cultures and creative disciplines, will work together and on individual practices through collaborative place-based making processes to generate and present global and local knowledge and strategies for imagining the futures of fragile cultural and environmental ecologies.

Value will be given to the individual knowledge and experience of each resident, and over shared meals, residents and facilitators will expand the time for exchange and developing relationships and networks.

By thinking and doing through the lens of MICRO and MACRO approaches, and analogue-digital relationships, we will explore layered histories whilst inhabiting an ancient, culturally-rich landscape. Residents will be enabled to activate dynamic haptic, sensory and experiential articulations of place, and to express the psychogeography of space, experimenting with what it means to transpose and transcribe, inventing while sifting through the multiple histories and geographies of carefully chosen locations.

Facilitators and residents will together explore site-responsive and reflective approaches to experiment with the intersection of material and immaterial realms of knowledge and knowing. Residents will be encouraged to traverse internal and external worlds, thinking about deep time, while embracing weather’s sensory and cyclical rhythms.

Sessions will prompt reflection on ruin memory, material memory and ecological memory, life cycles and reclamation, rehabilitation and regeneration. To navigate questions of presence and absence, and the known and unknown, the contradictory dynamics that flow beneath surfaces will be embraced.

Guided walks, visits and readings will take place in lost, renewed or fragile places. Discipline experts in the local community who hold precious knowledge of archaeological sites, abandoned places, architectural and local history past and present, and collecting, archiving and presenting, will contribute to bespoke sessions. The residency programme includes time for residents’ to work in studio spaces, applying developing knowledge and content gained during the Group Residency to individual practices.

FACILITIES

Residents are accommodated in two recently renovated, comfortable houses situated a couple of minutes walk from each other. Houses have fully equipped kitchens, bathrooms, sitting rooms, and double, twin and single bedrooms (single use bedrooms can be allocated dependent on availability). Central heating and internet throughout. Cleaning is included in cost.


Studios / Workspaces are located in buildings that are situated a couple of minutes walk from each other, and from accommodation. They are recently renovated and include indoor and outdoor making spaces, and desk space. Internet throughout.

LOCATION

The residency is located in Collemacchia, a small village within Italy’s National Park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise, a protected area of exceptional significance and beauty. Engagement with the natural world begins on the doorstep and the mountainous landscape offers an excellent environment for reflective practice. The ancient, undisturbed and extensive terrain holds a rich and complex history visible in the area’s architecture, customs, agricultural lands and forests.

Inhabitants are attempting to reinvigorate their community in the face of significant environmental and cultural change. The area is sparsely populated by villages that are largely trilingual Italian-French-English due to the large community of emigrants who continually move between European nations, stemming from economic migration dating from approx. 1850. The village has been home to Tracy Mackenna’s family for centuries and the curators of The Museum of Loss and Renewal foster strong links with the local community which is highly supportive of the Residency Programme.

FACILITATORS

The Group Residency programme will be facilitated by Tracy Mackenna (The Museum of Loss and Renewal) and Amanda Crabtree (artconnexion, France).

Tracy Mackenna (RSA, Professor Emerita; SCO-IT) & Edwin Janssen (Dr; NL) are the founders and co-curators of The Museum of Loss and Renewal. Their collaborative art practice is a creative and discursive site where production, presentation, exchange, co-learning and research meet. The Museum of Loss and Renewal’s key areas of focus address issues of societal concern such as habitation, (personal)histories, (in)formal collections, land futures, land use, (experimental)mapping, and sustainability.

Their focus on place(making), (un)belonging, memory, (personal)narratives and imaginary futures can be seen in art projects exhibited and published internationally e.g. Micromegas (perceptions of scale, philosophical & scientific thought and human foible), War as Ever! (scale and the viewer, conflict, looking and art), Rock and Dust | Roccia e Polvere (activating archival material, harmonies and tensions between place, people and time), Ash, Chalk and Charcoal (inherent violence in spatial mark making, in private spaces and public spaces), Friendly Invasions 2034 (modular architectural structure; interplay between audience, place, cultural legacy).

They are highly experienced, award winning educators who have devised and lead multiple group learning projects situated within the international museum and gallery sector, and higher education.

In her individual practice and research Tracy employs drawing, video, walking and writing as dialogical processes to activate playful, provocative and non-linear properties of language within visual art practice, giving new and refreshed voice to collaborators and subject-matters.

Amanda Crabtree is Director and Lead Curator of artconnexion, France. artconnexion creates innovative connections between artists and society through a range of cultural activities: citizen commissions, research and education projects, exhibitions, conferences, residencies and apprenticeships.

Amanda established artconnexion in 1994 and prior to this, she worked at the British Council, Paris, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing, Le Magasin contemporary art centre, Grenoble and the Centre d’art contemporain of Geneva. She currently directs artconnexion and curates major exhibitions and public realm projects. Amanda leads the Master’s programme ‘Art & Society’, University of Lille, France with a particular focus on the production of contemporary art works within the public realm and the Diploma short-course for arts professionals ‘Reclaiming art’. She is a member of the Lille University laboratories Centre d’Etude des Arts Contemporains and Laboratoire Conception Territoire Histoire. Her research interests focus on public art practice and she is currently writing on the work of American artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles.

FEE

The Residency Programme is operated on a non-commercial cost-covering basis, and is financially supported by The Museum of Loss and Renewal in order to keep fees low. The residency fee is €1600 (Euro) paid by the resident. It includes the residency programme, accommodation, full board, collection/return to nearest train/bus station, accommodation in a variety of spacious rooms, excellent studio spaces. Catering (3 meals each day) includes ingredients that are mainly locally sourced and meals prepared by our cook. Vegan and vegetarian diets can be catered for.

A 50% deposit is payable within two weeks of accepting a place on the Group Residency. The remaining 50% is payable six weeks in advance of the start of the Group Residency.

You will be responsible for funding and organising your own travel, your own insurances and any visa requirements particular to your country of origin. Detailed travel information will be supplied (closest airports Naples, Rome), and collection/drop-off at a local train station will be arranged.

We do not have external funding for this project, so regret that we are unable to offer assistance with fees, flights, production costs or other subsistence. Typically, successful applicants source funding by applying to their national arts funding bodies, personal fundraising, or through academic institutional support. Formal letters of invitation can be provided to assist in this process.

SCHEDULE OUTLINE

Day 01
Arrival (collection at nearest train station/bus stop), orientation, introductions, dinner

Days 02-07 

Residency Programme e.g. presentations with discursive sessions (approaches to art-making responding to desires and needs of place, people and time), presentation/s (online international guest/s) with exercise/s, meetings (local experts), visits (historical, archaeological and contemporary sites), walks (guided), studio time (individual and collective), sharing and reviews (work in progress)

Day 08 

Reflection, departure (transport to nearest intercity departure points)


A detailed programme will be provided to residents before arrival.

HOW TO APPLY

The selection process will consider the quality of your work, reason for participation and the potential impact that MICRO-MACRO might have on your practice and/or research.

Applicants should email one PDF document containing the following information to tracy@themuseumoflossandrenewal.life
– Statement: tell us about your practice (300 words)
– Motivation: explain why you wish to participate in this residency. And describe what skills and experience you would like to gain, and what you could contribute (300 words)
– 5 key words that describe your main practice/research interests: these will be shared amongst residents prior to residency
– CV: maximum 1 page. Outline your education and recent work (i.e. exhibitions, commissions, performances, curation, publications)
– Contact details: full name, phone number with country/area code
– Link: to your website/online platform, or documentation of visual/textual info (max 2 pages A4)
– Access: Information about any access requirements if applicable

Title your PDF application doc: FirstNameSecondName_GRMMItaly_2024

If you are more comfortable submitting an application in another format e.g. recorded audio, video or a combination of these or through a phone call or with the assistance of another person, please email tracy@themuseumoflossandrenewal.life

APPLICATION DEADLINE / one place available – apply now
Successful applicants will be notified within 2 weeks of deadline.

N.B. Applicants who will apply to funding bodies can apply immediately (before MICRO-MACRO deadline). If the offer of a residency place is made this can help support funding applications.

Please note that feedback on unsuccessful applications cannot be provided.

ELIGIBILITY

– You can be at any stage of your (creative) career
– The programme may best suit (creative) practitioners who are seeking to develop their knowledge and skills within an environment of co-learning and discussion
– Open to (creative) practitioners based in any country but applicants should have a good working knowledge of English
– Applications from duos and partnerships are welcomed