masaha residency cycle 11

A three-month visual arts residency in Riyadh that invites artists to work with what remains rather than what has already passed.

This cycle of the Masaha Residency explores how traces — whether physical, digital, emotional, or spatial — can become starting points for new artistic inquiries. Instead of documenting events themselves, the program centers on what is left behind: subtle marks, fragmented stories, and quiet transformations that reveal how time, memory, and experience shape our surroundings.

“The Witness and the Trace” encourages artists to shift their attention to what is often overlooked. Participants are invited to examine residues, minor gestures, and incomplete narratives, and to translate these into research-driven, conceptually grounded artworks. Through this process, the artist becomes both observer and interpreter, working directly with the evidence of change rather than its origin.

Throughout the residency, artists will reflect on how traces evolve across materials, spaces, and contexts, and how meaning transforms as it moves between the physical and the digital, the personal and the collective. By engaging with memory, documentation, and transformation, residents will develop new bodies of work that respond to the complexities of time and place.

The program provides a structured environment that combines mentorship, research, site visits, public engagement, and critical dialogue, culminating in a funded group exhibition. It is designed for committed visual artists seeking space, resources, and intellectual exchange to deepen their practice and expand their conceptual horizons.