// Curious Encounters 3 – Autumn 2024 // 

8 weeks during October 8th – December 2nd, 2024

Closed for applicants.

// Curious Encounters 4 – Spring 2025 // 

8 weeks during March 18th – May 12th, 2025

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS (Deadline: Dec. 15th 2024)

Each residency is for two collaborating working partners: One artist and one researcher / specialist.
The interdisciplinary collaboration between artist and researcher should address the theme of multispecies relations and the more-than-human.
The residencies will take place at Earthwise Residency, Mols, Denmark.

Each of the two residencies may have different requirements for applicants.

Residency theme 

• The more-than-human is the focus of the two Curious Encounters at Earthwise, because we think that more interdisciplinary work is needed in this fast-growing and important field. We believe that the climate emergency is caused by the industrialized societies having forgotten that Planet Earth is not just ‘resources’ for humans to utilize and grab, but a shared home, with no alternatives.Collaborations across science and art can propose new ways – or highlight the wisdom of old ways – to coexist with and understand other species / the more-than-human.Earthwise Residency focuses on practices and research, which heightens our sensitivity, knowledge, and methods for consciously reweaving our human lives with the myriad of relations and interdependencies we all rely on. We are interested in communication with the living world and the animal kingdom, and in developing creative work that situates and enhances curiosity and intimacy – encounters -with the more-than-human, while at the same time exploring corresponding academic research through artistic lenses.The two residencies Curious Encounters is one of our active contributions to the paradigm shifts happening these years. We believe that interdisciplinary meetings – the meeting and mixing of aesthetics, art expressions, humanities, and sciences – hold the possibility to foster new thoughts, rediscover ancient knowledge as well as new paths for action.

• What we are looking for, or hope to experience
• — Expanding / exploring the ways in which we in the arts communicate with other living entities as well as communicate about them; ie what does ‘understand’ and ‘relate’ mean, and how can ways of understanding and relating be shared? 
  — Expanding / exploring formats of conducting research in as well as disseminating work processes, findings and questions in the area of the more-than-human. 
  — Expanding / exploring formats of and ways to document work with and about the more-than-human 
  — Expanding / exploring ways to share work processes and methods in an ongoing dialogue, in-situ as well as online.
  

• See documentation from previous Curious Encounters here
• — Curious Encounters 1, Agnieszka Bułacik & Liene Jurgelāne
  — Curious Encounters 2, Sara Bertolucci & Froukje van der Velde
• — Curious Encounters 3, Janina Taurinen & Mariia Solodiankina

For Curious Encounters 4 we are looking for performing artists and visual artists with an interest in time-based work and performance who already have an initial contact to or an ongoing collaboration with a researcher. Applicants must have a genuine interest in interdisciplinary approaches – and their innate challenges – and preferably some experience of working with the-more-than-human.  

• — The researcher/specialist should be actively engaged in research processes and hold a master’s degree, preferably a Ph.D. degree. The researcher/specialist may have a background in the Humanities, Social Sciences or STS (Science & Technology Studies).

• — The artist must investigate the more-than-human through primarily visual or performing arts. We encourage both emerging/upcoming artists as well as mid-career artists to apply.  

• Both residents must
• — have turned 18.
• — be able to travel and stay in Denmark for the duration of the residency without any need of VISA  (check VISA free countries here).

But age, gender, sexuality or race has no impact on the selection process and we aim to curate with awareness of diversity.

If you are unsure whether you meet the criteria for the residency, or have further queries or questions, please email Natasja (info_at_earthwise_dot_dk).

• Residency dates
• — This residency runs from March 18th until May 12th (dates are flexible).
• — Day of arrival: March 17th
• — Day for departure: May 13th
• We will try to accommodate any calendar needs or prior engagements, but deviations from the dates mentioned here, may affect the offered stipend due to the nature of our funding.

• Nationalities
• We are sad to realize how much time and effort is needed by bigger residency places than ours, when they invite artists from outside of Schengen or other visa free areas.
• The effects of the protective immigration politics of Denmark are revolting, and we sincerely hope this will soon change.
• So, we unfortunately have to say that if you are an artist or researcher from a country outside of Schengen /needing special visa for entering Denmark, we do not have the administrative muscles to go through the needed process – being just an small, artist-led residency place and working from funding to funding.
• But please let us know that you had wanted to apply, so we know you exist and are interested in Earthwise.
• But it is with great sadness that we have to say that we will have to reject an application, if you need a special visa to enter Denmark.
• — See VISA free countries here.

Earthwise provides

• Working space (writing tables, as well as a small studio space, and lots of outdoor space) * Accommodation in private rooms in a house shared with Earthwise volunteers * Working space (writing tables, as well as a small studio space, and lots of outdoor space) * Space for partners/children can be negotiated * Access to a rich library w/ relevant titles * Access to the other facilities of Earthwise * Mentoring or consultations with Earthwise’s host, Christine Fentz, and possibly other respondents * A stipend of 5.000 € for each of the two persons * A small budget for materials. 

• We do not cover transportation
• Earthwise has a consequent and friendly approach to sustainable choices, including travel means and advise you to choose options with a smaller CO2-footprint.
• Should air travel be unavoidable we encourage you to support a trustworthy tree planting project (we can recommend some, in DK, UK and Canada).
• We will also provide you with a letter of invitation that should assist you in crossing borders as well as applying for travel grants.

• During the residency period, the two residents are asked to 
• — Hold a minimum of two dissemination events, workshops or ‘artist/researcher talks’ for the local community. 
• — Hold a final event or showing of the project process or discoveries in the last stages of the residency for the local community and any collaborators. We do NOT expect a ‘finished result’, but just a summary of your process and findings.
  
• — Continually document their project process, discoveries, and experiences, and share this documentation with Earthwise during or by the end of the residency.
• — Post-residency write articles, make podcast or in other ways disseminate from their collaboration on the level of academic and artistic research which is available for the residents.
• — Save the dates for Earthbound Symposium in late August 2025, where we may invite the residents to present their findings.

You may also be invited to do other presentations within our network – online or in person. But we are very aware of the need to have a more or less empty calendar while being here, to really dive in.
Earthwise will make a detailed contract with you incl. a residency schedule with the input and preferences of the residents in mind. 

• Earthwise Residency is a year-round invitation to spend time with the living land at a place where art and research intertwine. Relations, care, and the interconnectedness of all is what is important here. These basic principles can be found in all our activities: The food we grow and eat, the reused furniture and materials, and the way our volunteers are part of the ongoing work with animals and land. The artists and researchers who come here work with themes such as regenerative practices, interspecies relations, sustainability, and interdisciplinary meetings, etc.

• Earthwise Residency has invited artists and researchers for several years, and has previously hosted Curious Encounters 1 & 2 during 2023 with great success. 
  Our activities have grown out of the work of the performing arts company Secret Hotel, which creates participatory performances about and together with the more-than-human.Secret Hotel is led by Artistic Director Christine Fentz who is also hostess of Earthwise Residency, Mols where she and her partner Brice live. Earthwise is placed in a tiny village in the Mols Bjerge National Park, 40km outside of Aarhus, and consists of an old farm, land and a residency house. 

• Earthwise Residency is at the same time both a place for work retreats and calm time spent in a quiet corner of the living world amongst many other species – and a vibrant tiny center with a buzz of both insects and various humans maintaining buildings, diving into books or otherwise joining the Earthwise-family. 

• Space for Earthwisedom (a collaboration between Secret Hotel and Earthwise Residency) organizes the biennial Earthbound Symposium; an interdisciplinary gathering to which the residents most probably will be invited, August 2025.

Selection committee:

• Christine Fentz (artistic director of Secret Hotel and Earthwise Residency) and Trine Rytter Andersen (visual arts consultant, art critic and curator and part of Earthwise) will be assisted byAnne Hübertz (Aarhus Performing Arts Platform) and Synne Behrndt (dramaturg and lecturer in Performing Arts, Stockholm University of the Arts).

The deadline for application is December 15th, 23.59 (Danish time/CET).

• Apply here
• –Fill in the form
• –Upload a joint application including a short bio of each resident and a project proposal (max. 3 pages, PDF)
• –Portfolio or CV of the artist
• –Portfolio or CV of the researcher
• We only require either a portfolio or CV at this stage, but if your application goes through, we may request additional information, if your application is chosen for the the residency.

Have you not heard from us by end January, it likely means that you have not been selected for this residency. As we are a small organization, we have taken heed of the advice to have this procedure.
You are of course welcome to reach out if you’re interested in a self-paid work retreat at another time. We are happy to have funding for this program, but welcome artists and researchers in other types of visits too.

If you have any questions, please write Natasja at info_at_earthwise_dot_dk

With the project “Hydro Communication”, Janina Taurinen & Mariia Solodiankina were chosen from over 40 applications (80 applicants) to take part in in Curious Encounters 3.

We look forward to working with them!

Many thanks to the many who applied for Curious Encounters 3 with extraordinary projects – we hope to see and collaborate with you in the future!