artist in residence program – call for applications 2024

At Villa Sonnenberg in Lenzburg, we live hospitality and culture – honestly, heartfelt and reciprocally.

The sponsor

The sponsor of the Villa Sonnenberg is the «Villa Sonnenberg Foundation», which is committed to preserving and revitalising the listed property. This also includes art and cultural projects as well as an Artist-in-Residence-programme for professional artists. Through the residencies, the foundation promotes intercultural exchange and international networking. The artistic work of the studio guests should experience new impulses and find time to develop further at Villa Sonnenberg.

Annual theme 2024

As an artist in residence, you will have the opportunity to realise a project related to the annual theme and to participate in everyday life at Villa Sonnenberg. The estate with its historic buildings and picturesque garden has been recently renovated and is open for events, conferences and overnight guests. Your stay will conclude with a public exhibition or presentation of your work.

Annual theme 2024:

«Crooked & Slanted – Beautiful Imperfection?»

Crooked stairs, sloping floors, slanted walls. You can discover many irregularities in the 250-year-old Villa Sonnenberg. What effect do asymmetries have on us humans? Do we love dissimilarity or do we do we prefer symmetry? Is symmetry the epitome of beauty? Or is it surpassed even more by disruptions and breaks?

Are productive phases associated with asymmet- rical processes? As, for example, in the formation of the universe, which could only come into being in all its complexity through the deviation from symmetry? Does this therefore mean: Without deviation, without asymmetry, no life?

But asymmetry can also be seen in the unequal relationships between the countries of the global North and South, and it also makes us think of unequal majorities in politics. In mechanics and construction, asymmetries seem to be disadvanta- geous. Symmetrical relationships are considered the norm, whereas asymmetrical relationships must be explained, legitimised or even corrected. – This is a tension that also arose during the renovation of Villa Sonnenberg. Without blurring or even erasing the historically grown irregularities of the building structures, the task was to implement current building norms or at least to come closer to them. Creative solutions were called for.

The Foundation is dedicating the first annual theme entitled «Crooked and slanted – Beautiful Imperfection?» to the discussion of symmetry and asymmetry – a discussion that formed a vital part of the renovation project of the listed Villa Sonnenberg.

For 2024, the Villa Sonnenberg Foundation calls for applications of professional artists of all disciplines for three studio residencies. The artists are invited to take up the discourses around «A/Symmetry» and to interpret them artistically.