Masaha Residency Cycle 6

Conceptualize the Future Through Tradition

Misk Art Residencies aims to support artistic development and practice by promoting the possibilities of meaningful exchange between the local community and the global cultural landscape. The Masaha Residency is designed to cultivate the art sector by facilitating discourse, research, and experimentation around themes that concern the local community.

This cycle of Masaha Residency invites artists to interpret the future of tradition through visual art, conceptualizing imagined futures of the Kingdom, the region, and the world. 

Art movements such as Afro, Gulf, and Arab Futurism have attempted to visualize future generations through a complex web of well-informed speculations. Can we imagine new technologies informed by traditional cultural practices? Can we create innovative urban landscapes inspired by materials used by ancestors? Can we revise and alter current visualizations of the future to pick up the pace of today’s world?

In collaboration with a guest curator and expert mentors, the sixth cycle of Misk Art Institute’s biannual Masaha Residency invites ten emerging visual artists and two Saudi Arabic writers to consider possible transformations that might shape the future. 
 

Program Structure

• Weekly mentorship

• Three sessions with a guest curator

• Up to four masterclasses

• Up to four workshops and lectures

• Weekly lunches/meetings

• Development of project and budget proposals

• Up to four trips to cultural/historical sites in Riyadh

• Public engagement through open studios and resident-led educational programing

• Networking sessions via studio visits by veteran artists and art practitioners

• Up to four crit sessions with external and internal collaborators 

• Final group exhibition showcase, funded by Misk Art Institute

Who’s It For?
The Masaha Residency is open to 

Ten full-time emerging Saudi and international visual artists who meet one or more of the following criteria:

• 3+ years of fine arts experience

• 3+ years of exhibiting history

• Actively practicing and engaging in the arts

Two full-time Saudi Arabic art writers, preferably with professional writing experience—not creative writers.

Residents Will Gain

• Time and space to focus on researching a new theme-related project

• External and internal experts to advise, provide feedback, and critique your research and project

• Long-lasting contacts within the Saudi and international arts network

• Exposure to and from important members of the art community (such as artists, press, curators, etc.)

• Group showcase exhibiting your new body of work

• Professional development as an artist/writer 

Additional Programing For Writers 

• Professional art writing development exercises

• Writing one article about each of their fellow residents

• An art writing project that engages critically with the theme "Traditions of the Future"