Nomadic curatorial residency

THE PROJECT

This project should be considered as a residency intended to put the curator or art critic in touch with relevant contacts and facilitate his/her/their networking with many actors of the different territories, for which each structure acts as a facilitator.
The aim is to discover and establish a dialogue with the local area, in the variety of contexts offered by each of the locations.

The scheme aimed to: 

— Promote dialogue and exchange between artists and curators;
— Provide young curators with opportunities for research, artistic work, and networking;
— Contribute to the visibility of artists from different geographical areas;
— Encourage, through this visibility, the mobility of artists between different geographical areas;
— Offer curators nomadic working conditions that reflected the art sector’s qualities of mobility and interconnectedness;
— Bring a fresh outlook and constructive insights to the hosting organisations.

2025 / The nomadic curatorial residency of Julián León Camargo

For its seventh edition in 2025, the nomadic curatorial residency is developed in collaboration with Red Quincho, the Argentine network of residencies, and is supported by the Williams Foundation. The open call was directed exclusively to the Argentine curatorial scene and was disseminated by Red Quincho. Julián León Camargo is the laureate of the 2025 edition. He was hosted for four research visits dedicated to exploring the French art scene between September and November 2025, within four member organizations of the network: la malterie arts visuels (Lille), la Métive (Moutier d'Ahun), Artistes en résidence (Clermont-Ferrand) and thankyouforcoming (Nice).

Several members of Red Quincho will host the nomadic residency intended for a French curator, each providing a framework for numerous encounters across different regions of Argentina. Each organization will faciliate connections between the laureate and the local scene (artists and other professionals) and support their understanding of the residency landscape in Argentina.

2023 / The nomadic curatorial residency of Carola Uehlken

In 2023, Carola Uehlken was hosted by 3 members of the Arts in Residence network: Centre d'arts Fernand Léger (Port-de-Bouc), Artistes en résidence (Clermont-Ferrand) et Le Port des Créateurs (Toulon).

2022 / The nomadic curatorial residency of Ninon Duhamel

From September to December 2022, Ninon Duhamel was hosted by 4 members of the Arts en Résidence network: Maison Salvan (Toulouse), Centre d'arts Fernand Léger (Port de Bouc), thankyouforcoming (Nice - Côte d'Azur), Memento (Auch).

2021 / The nomadic curatorial residency of Amanda Abi Khalil

In the wake of the disaster that struck Beirut on the 4th of August 2020 and to provide professionals with a temporary escape from testing living and working conditions caused by this multifaceted crisis, the Association des Centres culturels de rencontre (ACCR) and The Institut français of Lebanon joined forces to offer 100 Lebanese artists and art professionals residencies in France as part of the emergency NAFAS programme. The call for applications is addressed exclusively to a curator currently living in Lebanon.

PORTRAIT

In 2021, the nomadic curatorial residency welcomed the independent Lebanese curator Amanda Abi Khalil. She has international experience in contemporary art mediation, including curating exhibitions, public commissions and collaborations with artists, institutions, foundations and fairs. She is particularly interested in the social practices of art and questioning of the exhibition format.
 
From September to December 2021, she was hosted by 4 members of the Arts en Résidence network: Maison Salvan (Toulouse), Centre d'arts Fernand Léger (Port-de-Bouc), Finis terrae - Centre d'art insulaire (Ouessant), and thankyouforcoming (Nice).
 
This residency contributed to Amanda Abi Khalil's research project which she started more than three years ago and the focus of which is hospitality in the art world. Her research explores the fruitful tension between the expectations of the host and the person hosting, but also the particular position of the curator in residence as both ‘guest’ and ‘host’, i.e. someone who has been invited as well as someone who will host individuals in the future.
 
The residency took place in partnership with TAP (Temporary Art Platform) which was founded by Amanda Abi Khalil in 2014 in Beirut. This international curatorial platform’s work is committed to contextual, public and social practices in contemporary art. It has set up art residencies, public commissions, research projects on practices in public spaces and aims for mediation between the arts, territories and societies. togetherwetap.art

DIARY

20th of October 2021. On a train from Marseille to Paris before reaching the island of Ouessant. It's been just over a month since I arrived. I've been struggling to find the right words to describe what it means to be ‘in nomadic residence’ when we: TAP, my team and myself are (once again) in exile, forced to be nomadic. I have been looking into the domestic and notably institutional hospitality conditions in the art field. It is a question of rituals, language and (sometimes impossible) translations between the language of the host and on the one hand his/her/their capacity to listen, and the (psychological and material) conditions and reciprocity of the host) on the other. Words used to describe the complexity of this moment in time sound like euphemisms, one day a guest curator, the next an exile looking for ways out. In Labège, I found a house, called Salvan, and invited guests round for a cold meal. Some of them had experienced the Ammonium Nitrate Blast, we talked about scales.
Shift.
Impossible to translate.
Twenty days of intense encounters and experiencing springtime in September - this was the first stopover.
Port-de-Bouc brought me closer to you. It’s the sea, it was under my window. This graveyard of drowned migrants, these gentle waves that registered the impact of the explosion. I knew that on the other side, you were plunged into darkness and that in the darkness of your streets, famine could be heard. I only want to talk about you, I only want to write about you. More happens when you see the horizon.
 
Tonight my body is on a train, in reality I stayed there. I can't send petrol, meat or cancer treatment for my dying uncle, but at the end of this second stopover a proposal materialises. A proposal to transform TAP into a place that can receive individuals in France, in collaboration with a few institutions united and involved in the values and ethics of curatorial work.  
 
For the anniversary of the revolution, we shared a meal with Catherine in Beaucaire.
 
6 weeks of residency...
 
Nafas. To breath in Arabic.
 
Questioning the violence that otherness produces is never welcome.
 
Amanda Abi Khalil - TAP (Temporary Art Platform)
October 2021 - TGV INOUI 6180

NAFAS

In the context of the acute crisis that is hitting the Lebanese cultural scene with full force, the Institut français, the Association des Centres Culturelles de Rencontre and the Institut français in Lebanon have joined forces to invite 100 Lebanese artists to participate in residencies in France. This emergency programme entitled ‘NAFAS’ is co-financed by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture. This programme is a continuation of the emergency aid provided to Lebanon which was announced by the Head of State in September 2020. Within the framework of this emergency recovery aid, culture plays an important role, both in terms of the recovery of destroyed heritage and the helping of creators.
 
The "NAFAS" residencies (which comes from the Arabic word نفس, meaning ‘breath’) represent a breath of fresh air for Lebanese artists, enabling them to continue their creative work within the framework of cultural exchanges with France. This programme aims to support Lebanese artists, creators and cultural professionals by providing residencies throughout Metropolitan France, for a defined period of time. It aims to guide them in the development of a research and creation project, in all sectors of contemporary creation.

2020 / The nomadic curatorial residency of Gabrielle Camuset

In 2020, the independent curator Gabrielle Camuset is hosted by Artistes en résidence (Clermont-Ferrand), voyons voir (Aix-en-Provence) and Maison Salvan (Labège). This residency was part of a collaboration with Le Cube - Independent art room (Rabat, Morocco) and the call for applications was specifically aimed at curators from Morocco. The curator Gabrielle Camuset was selected for this edition. She was hosted by each of the three structures for one month at a time.

2017 / The nomadic curatorial residency of Nicolas de Ribou

In 2017, the independent curator Nicolas de Ribou was hosted by La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (Mulhouse), voyons voir (Aix-en-Provence), Artistes en résidence (Clermont-Ferrand) et la malterie arts visuels (Lille). A call for applications was issued for the travel curatorial residency, the result of which was the selection of Nicolas de Ribou.
During the two stays in each of these places, Nicolas de Ribou was given the opportunity to meet many artists and actors of the territories he visited, in the variety of contexts offered by each of the structures. A blog constituted the main thread of his residency.

Link to the residency blog

2016 / The nomadic curatorial residency of Isabelle Henrion

For the first nomadic curatorial residency in 2016, the programme was initiated by four network members: la malterie arts visuels (Lille), La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (Mulhouse), Artistes en résidence (Clermont-Ferrand) and the BBB art center (Toulouse), none of whom had previously worked together. Supported by the wider network, they designed an experimental residency scheme that would see a curator or art critic travel between the four organisations for a series of week-long stays. The independent curator Isabelle Henrion's was hosted.

Link to the residency blog