learning materials international artist in residence

Learning Materials is a collaborative project by Bioart Society, HIAP Helsinki International Artist Programme, Koynẽ Program, and TUO TUO, together with partners FIBRA, LABVA, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, and SWAMP: Art Material Swap and Waste Management Point. The project is supported by Kone Foundation. 

The project partners invite applications for residencies focused on socially engaged, process-orientated and material-driven practices. 

Learning Materials is a multi-year partner project committed to rethinking and remaking our relationship with materials. In an era shaped by petrochemical dependence, extractive economies, technological determinism, and escalating ecological crises, the project asks how we might work with materials differently – by attending to their legacies, agencies, and entanglements. 

Through residencies, collaborative research, skill-sharing and knowledge exchange, Learning Materials explores how artists, cultural organisations, and communities can build capacity and networks for learning from and with materials in ways that are just, sustainable and grounded in diverse knowledge systems. 

The residencies focus on research and experimentation, with no designated output. Residents will work alongside the Learning Materials Fellows and will have access to the support, expertise, networks and facilities of each partner.

Applicants will need to demonstrate expertise in material and socially-engaged practices (as opposed to artists looking to learn or experiment for the first time).