the economics of being looked at
Labó Bosa invites artists and cultural professionals to apply for The Economics of Being Looked At, a one-month, funded art residency exploring authenticity and collective making. It takes place from 1 to 31 March 2027 at the Labó Bosa studio in Bosa, Sardinia (Italy).
The Economics of Being Looked At brings together a multidisciplinary group of 5 artists to examine a single question, through their own work and through the place around them: what does authenticity mean today, for places and for artists? Bosa, like many villages, is under quiet pressure to look the way visitors expect it to, and the things that resist that pressure are often the most honest. Artists face the same pull, towards what is legible, recognisable and sellable. The residency turns that tension into a creative project.
Over the 31 days, each resident pursues their own practice alongside scheduled sessions that examine authenticity through their own visual grammar and through observation of the village and its people. In parallel, the whole group develops a collaborative print edition that deliberately recreates the "village effect": from five individual marks, a collective work that none of them could have made alone. The residency closes with an open studio rather than a finished show, so that the working process itself is on view.
The residency takes place in a former tannery on the banks of the river Temo, in Bosa's historic tannery district, recognised as a national monument and now a working printmaking studio and gallery.