Text by CLOT Magazine
La Becque Artist Residency is a recently started programme of residencies in Switzerland, located on the shores of Lake Geneva between Vevey and Montreux, dedicate particular attention to projects exploring the intertwined notions of nature, the environment, and of technology. At the core of contemporary preoccupations and of growing urgency, these themes feed into all disciplines of the arts – and artists are among those best equipped to map out alternative relationships to both technology and nature.
On March 1, 2020, La Becque launched its new call for applications for its Principal Residency Program, seeking residents for 2021 (with an application deadline set for March 31, 2020). Developed under the conduct of the Fondation Françoise Siegfried-Meier and under the direction of Luc Meier, the residency programme is currently in its second full year of activities, hosting its fourth series of residents, with projects by the likes of Félicia Atkinson and Bartolomé Sanson (Shelter Press), Valle Medina and Benjamin Reynolds (Pa.LaC.E), Ignacio Acosta during its winter 2020 residency period.
La Becque’s Principal Residency Program offers selected applicants three- and six-month residencies. The residencies will be held between January and November 2021. Contrary to 2019 and 2020, the yearly calendar at La Becque will make space for longer breaks between each residency period so as to further improve the support provided to each residency project—hence slightly reducing the number of residencies offered per year.
The Principal Residency Program is oriented towards confirmed artists and up-and-coming practitioners with high development potential. It continues to dedicate particular attention to projects exploring the interplay of nature and technology—two notions which are more than ever intertwined and at the core of contemporary preoccupations.
A purposefully broad playfield, this thematic nexus opens up very diverse yet similarly rewarding avenues of exploration—for example: documenting what and who makes up the “Anthropocene”; investigating notions such as exploration, extraction, the politics of nature, interspecies communication, proto-technologies and nature, etc.; using technological tools to document and transcribe natural environments into artistic contexts; exploring new junctures at which technology becomes part of our natural environments, and vice versa.
Details about the full yearly calendar and available residency periods in 2021 are available on La Becque’s website, which provides all information and forms pertaining to the call (application criteria and guidelines, FAQ, and application form).
