Nicosia Monastery of Arts Residency 2027

Visual Voices invites applications for the Nicosia Monastery of Arts Residency Programme (in Nicosia, Cyprus) for artists working at the intersection of art, sustainability, and community life. The residency offers space for site-specific artistic experimentation, community engagement, and public showcases.

The aim of the residency is to foster an artist-led regeneration of the Walled City of Nicosia, with a focus on practices relevant to post-conflict contexts:

Nicosia remains the last divided capital in Europe. The United Nations buffer zone extends across the walled city with movement across the divide restricted to one designated crossing point. Since 1974, the walled city has experienced urban decline. Many historic and contemporary buildings are abandoned or in deteriorating condition. Complex property ownership further complicates efforts toward rehabilitation. Today, the walled city is the focus of regeneration efforts, largely driven by investments in education, research infrastructure and student accommodation. A key question remains: How can these strategies meaningfully benefit the existing human and more than human actors of the city across the divide and what is the contribution of a rich network of local cultural agents ( galleries, artist run spaces, research entities, creatives) in ensuring cultural regeneration that enables social cohesion in a post-conflict context?