In 2024, Greater Manchester-based organisation PROFORMA set out to research artist residencies and develop an artist residency toolkit. Corridor8 writer Natalie Bradbury was invited to observe the process.
Artist residencies can have a transformative impact on creative practice. Emerging from the notion of ‘residence’ – to reside in a particular place, either in the short-term or over a longer period of time – they offer time away from ordinary routines, a change of scene and environment, and an opportunity to embed oneself in the life, practice and networks of another space.
Residencies can be formal, structured and institutionalised or informal and self-led. They might take place in creative or heritage settings such as galleries, museums and artist studios; domestic and community spaces including homes, housing estates and new towns; public buildings like healthcare settings, schools and universities; factories and other workplaces; outdoor spaces and rural places; or anywhere in between. Traditionally taking place in-person, and involving physical travel to another place, residencies have increasingly been offered remotely too, offering participation and exchange via online platforms.
Last year, commissioning organisation PROFORMA embarked on a research project in order to understand more about artists’ experiences of residencies, both positive and negative. Asking: ‘How can artist-led organisations and artists work together to improve residencies?’, the aim was to develop a nationwide toolkit that could be used to enable a greater number of artists to experience residencies, promote their benefits to both artists and organisations, and share good practice.
Founded in Greater Manchester in 2017 to profile artists working at the intersection of visual art and performance, over the past eight years PROFORMA has used funding from Arts Council England, partnerships and private sources to facilitate residencies in a range of contexts, from online programmes to physical exchanges with Manchester’s German twin city, Chemnitz.
Most recently, artists from Greater Manchester – including emerging artists as well as learning disabled and neurodivergent artists from Manchester-based organisation Venture Arts – were supported with time and space in Venice to create work to be shown in a so-called ‘collateral’ pavilion alongside the 2024 Venice Biennale programme. The residencies culminated in a series of short exhibitions in PROFORMA’s DESIRE LINES pavilion, curated in collaboration with German organisation Begehungen and Italian organisation PASE Platform, which attracted art-going visitors to the city and created vital international exposure for creative practitioners who would not otherwise have had such opportunities.
In 2021 PROFORMA initiated Longsight Community Art Space, a gallery and community venue in a property rented from a housing association in inner-city Manchester, again receiving financial support from the Arts Council along with a mixture of local neighbourhood and housing association funding. As PROFORMA had functioned as a nomadic organisation since its beginning, founder and Creative Director Chris Bailkoski saw this as an opportunity to undertake what he regarded as an ‘organisational residency’ within the community. Working to embed itself within the locale, this initially took the form of a two-year programme that included co-creating events responding to local needs and interests, including initiatives such as urban greening. This took place alongside a period of research and development to establish an independent organisation and explore participatory models for company structures. Now, running of the venue has been handed over to local people and residents via the creation of a Community Interest Company, which continues to programme and facilitate workshops in the space.
Through this close work with artists, PROFORMA has become increasingly aware of the barriers that often prevent creative practitioners from accessing opportunities such as residencies. A range of factors, from disability to finances and caring duties, mean it’s not always possible for artists to take a sustained period away from day-to-day life.
Last year, PROFORMA surveyed a small group of artists it had previously worked with, at different stages of their careers, asking for honest feedback about their experiences. ‘Most people fed back that most residencies were completely inaccessible for them,’ Bailkoski explained.
As part of a long research process, participating artists were asked to create a proposition or sketch for their ideal residency. A collage by emerging Manchester-based artist Astarte Cara, who spent time in Chemnitz with PROFORMA’s TANDEM residency, directly references the notion of dwelling and the ability to find home in different places, as well as playing with the idea of time – both concepts that are key to residencies.
A drawing by self-taught photographer and film-maker Omari Taylor, who travelled to Venice with PROFORMA in 2024, shows a figure crouching over a sapling, as if nurturing a seed of creativity. The figure pushes back against brick walls, a show of strength in the face of external, constraining influences.
Parham Ghalamdar, a previous participant in PROFORMA’s Manchester-Chemnitz residency exchange, used AI to compose a vividly idealistic scene. In a large open-plan space, resembling a modern office building, complete with foliage and a water feature, people learn, talk, look, share and make, alone, in pairs and in small-groups. People are busy creating and designing by hand and on computers, crafting, drawing and throwing pots, as the sun sets over rolling hills outside, revealed through a panoramic entranceway. It’s a busy but pleasant scene, bathed in soft light.
However, it can be difficult for artists who have never undertaken a residency to visualise one, and the reality can be far less harmonious than Ghalamdar’s drawing. Responses to PROFORMA’s survey revealed that when they go well, in-person residencies can provide artists with valuable opportunities to work in site-specific ways that respond to place. Creative practitioners value the ability to network and collaborate with other artists or organisations, and to experiment and find new directions in their practice, often leading to further opportunities and exposure. Other benefits include enabling artists to learn new skills, find mentorship, or try equipment they wouldn’t have access to in their usual working environments.
In spite of these clear positives, however, residencies are often mystifying to artists, who remain unconvinced it is worth their time applying. Feedback to PROFORMA revealed a tendency for organisations to rely on unduly convoluted application processes, which artists find to be time-consuming, disheartening and oversubscribed, with little consideration given to alternative ways of applying. Call-outs use unclear terminology such as emerging and mid-career, without properly defining these – a matter that PROFORMA pointed out is particularly pressing in Greater Manchester, where research published by Castlefield Gallery in 2014 suggested that 80% of artists do not progress from the ‘emerging’ phase of their careers.
Furthermore, there is a sense among artists that organisations are not always open about what they are looking for. In a focus group session to share experiences and feedback, artist and curator Mollie Balshaw of Manchester-based organisation Short Supply, which creates opportunities for emerging artists, observed: ‘Organisations are often guilty of having quite a rigid idea of the kind of person, the kind of practice and the kind of work they are looking for. We should encourage organisations to be more transparent and honest about this to save everyone time instead of giving the impression that anyone can fit the opportunity.’
Other artists experienced issues such as dysfunctional group dynamics among residency artists, including communication breakdowns and a lack of willingness to collaborate with fellow artists. Another common theme was unclear expectations about participation in exhibitions or other public-facing outputs and a lack of mechanisms to offer further feedback, networking or communication once a residency had concluded.
Duration, too, presented a challenge, with residencies either being too short to enable artists to settle in and become comfortable in their new environment, or inflexible regarding hybrid or part-time options. On a basic level, difficulties arise from bureaucratic and administrative processes, from inadequate contracts, logistical arrangements and accommodation, to a lack of transparency around fees and payment – something felt particularly acutely by artists from working-class backgrounds.
Taking this feedback on board, PROFORMA saw an opportunity to ‘offer something to the sector to try to improve it’ and benchmark ways of working. Working with producer Jessica Loveday and Saman Rizwan, a director of Longsight Community Art Space, PROFORMA spoke to a range of partner organisations in Greater Manchester. They also visited artist-led organisations around the UK, from Cornwall to Scotland and Wales to Norfolk, who were chosen for what Bailkoski described as a ‘common investment in responsibility to artists’. This process also enabled PROFORMA to ask itself questions as an organisation as it shifts away from its origins in Greater Manchester and places a greater focus on working with artists and organisations all over the country.
Bailkoski explained that PROFORMA was interested in looking at organisations outside London and artists from different backgrounds, particularly those who are finding different models and ways of working to the traditional structures of the contemporary art world. The project enabled PROFORMA to ask: ‘How can we feed that back to others to show how to work openly and fairly?’
Highlights included a trip to G39 in Cardiff, an impressive artist-led space in receipt of regular funding from Arts Council Wales, which offers a flexible residency programme. The team was particularly impressed by its strong focus on accessibility and support, which is embedded through a collective ‘code of care’. In Scotland, they met with Upland in Dumfries & Galloway, which generates income though a membership model alongside multi-year funding from Creative Scotland and offers residency programmes working with partners with expertise in the natural environment.
In Cornwall, PROFORMA went to see three organisations in Redruth, Auction House, Black Lane West, CRM and a new space under construction in a nearby town, Penryn Art Centre. Here, they saw first-hand how organisations benefit from collaborating together in a geographically isolated area, and combine online and in-person elements in hybrid residency models while also offering self-funded places.
For Rizwan, this was an inspiring experience that will feed into Longsight Community Art Space’s plans to offer residencies in the future. ‘I loved the way the organisations worked together,’ she told other participants in the project. ‘The sharing and working together for a common cause that we saw in Redruth and Wales and Scotland is not seen very often in Manchester where the competition is very cutthroat.’
PROFORMA’s artists residency toolkit brings together these learnings, compiling short case studies as well as offering practical advice for both artists and organisations. Most importantly, it acts as a checklist for participants and providers to ask themselves at each stage of the process. This encompasses the application and interview processes, logistics around planning, travel, accommodation, budgets and accessibility, expectations about outputs, ownership and documentation during the residency, and evaluation and feedback once the residency has ended. At a time of accelerated climate breakdown, it also asks artists and organisations to consider the environmental impact of residencies, from travel and use of materials to digital footprint.
‘I wish I had this to rely on ten years ago when I was a student and did not use my opportunities to their fullest potential,’ said Ghalamdar, responding to a draft of the toolkit. ‘The challenge is to make it the standard for the art scene.’
The toolkit is available to download in sections from the PROFORMA website and physical copies will also be available, initially from artist-led organisations which participated in the research before being sent out more widely. PROFORMA hopes that it will be a starting point for further conversations in the sector and discussions with bigger organisations. Another aspiration is to sow the seeds of a network that can match artists with residency opportunities and allow for the sharing of resources and equipment that may otherwise be prohibitively expensive and inconvenient to access.
The key with any residency, though, is to build in flexibility and adaptability, and to bear in mind each individual artist’s career stage, needs and aspirations. As Amanda Sutton, Director of Venture Arts, reminded PROFORMA: ‘A toolkit is very good but everything always changes.’ With this in mind, the toolkit will be revisited and updated on an annual basis.
If one image defines the project, it is a simple drawing by Nicola Dale, a sculptor and performance artist from Stockport who has undertaken several projects with PROFORMA over the years. The drawing, which is captioned ‘Equal give and take’, comprises two spheres, one radiating arrows as if to project ideas and inspiration, the other receiving these influences. One represents an organisation and the other an artist, although it is not clear which is which.
This message of reciprocity resonates with PROFORMA’s research findings. As Bailkoski put it: ‘Something that was really common in the responses was the need for artists and organisations to have much more reciprocal relationships – for organisations to listen to artists and what they have to say.’
The toolkit can be accessed at the following links:
Natalie Bradbury is a writer and researcher based in Greater Manchester.
This exploration is supported by PROFORMA.
Published 05.03.2025 by Jazmine Linklater in Explorations
2,178 words
