Masaha Residency:  Cycle 11

A three-month visual arts residency in the heart of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, focusing the transformative role of creative expression.  

About Misk Art Residencies 

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.  

Theme: The Witness and the Trace 

This cycle theme “The Witness and the Trace” invites artists to consider what remains after something has passed: an action, a gesture, a story, or a shift in a space or system. These traces, whether material or digital, carry signals of what once occurred, revealing time, use, and transformation through what is left behind. 

Rather than reconstructing a complete narrative, this cycle encourages artists to work with what is often overlooked. It asks them to attend to quiet residues, incomplete documents, and minor shifts, and to the ways traces move between time and space. As a trace shifts from physical to digital, or from image to gesture, it may take on new meaning in the process. 

In this cycle, the artist becomes a witness: someone who works directly with what remains. Artists are encouraged to reflect on memory and to translate personal experiences of the past into conceptual frameworks that support research and artistic practice. 

Reflective Questions: 

1. What do you notice first after an event has passed, and what do you usually miss? 
2. How do traces in your work change over time: do they accumulate, fade, or transform across materials and mediums? 
3. What does it mean for you to witness something through what is left behind rather than through the event itself? 

Program structure:  

1. Weekly mentorship sessions  
2. Development of project and budget proposals  
3. Trips to cultural/historical sites in Riyadh  
4. Public engagement through open studios and resident-led educational programing  
5. Networking sessions  
6. A critique session with external and internal collaborators.  
7. Final group exhibition showcase, funded by Misk Art Institute  

Residents will gain:  

1. Time and space to focus on researching a new theme-related project  
2. External and internal experts to advise, provide feedback, and critique your research and project  
3. Long-lasting contacts within the Saudi and international arts network  
4. Exposure to and from important members of the art community (such as artists, press, curators, etc.)  
5. Group showcase exhibiting your new body of work  
6. Professional development as an artist  

Who’s it for?  

Full-time visual artists from all artistic disciplines who meet one or more of the following:  

1. 3+ of fine arts experience  
2. 3+ years of exhibiting history  
3. Actively practicing and engaging in the arts  

Applicants must also be fully committed to prioritizing this three-month program, with no exceptions.  

What we provide  

1. Roundtrip flight to Riyadh  
2. Visas for Saudi Arabia   
3. Accommodation (For those based outside of Riyadh)  
4. Private studio 
5. Production budget   

Image credit: Artwork by Farah Alturki, from Masaha Residency Cycle 3