Artists’ residences
The Castle of Vassivière Island

The artists’ residences at Vassivière Island, projected for the year 2009, will be reserved for artists, architects, city planners, art historians, theoreticians, philosophers, film-makers and writers who have a precise project that is in harmony with the vision of the Centre international d’art et du paysage but independent of the Center’s programming.

The 1st cycle of residences is planned for the year 2011.

The elaboration of a project will be the main criterion for invitation of the residents to be selected by the directors together with a working group for a period of one year, with the presence of two or three artists. 

Concept

In an entirely new and original way, these residences situated on Vassivière Island – in a unique natural environment propitious to creativity and interdisciplinary collaboration – are defined as “project residences”, which means that they no longer involve just one artist but rather a veritable project that can regroup several.

A working group will be set up to undertake a multidisciplinary creative project. From the history of the site and the Centre d’art, it is evident that the entire landscape of Vassivière Island constitutes a privileged location for research and reflection. As a prolongation of the Third-Landscape (a concept born on the very spot of Vassivière on the occasion of an artistic commission of the Centre d’art in 2003) and of the Landscape Charter (Drink the lake water: landscape charter of the Vassivière region, commissioned by SYMIVA in 2004) by Gilles Clément, the residences will be committed to developing in a privileged but not exclusive manner projects that question and involve the notion of landscape, defined as a subject of perpetual surprise. The residence in the Castle, the quality of the available spaces, and the force of the surrounding landscape offer exceptional conditions for residence.

The structure must be perfectly conceived for a period of isolation of several months. The artists will have at their disposal lodgings and a scholarship with one year periods of residence with persons of their choice to work on a previously untouched project (an exhibit, book, symposium, work of art). This process of selection allows projects to be chosen that are born by crossing different disciplines, creating a dynamic and heterogeneity within the very residences. This concept of residences revolves around the idea of gathering a group of artists who would otherwise not have the opportunity to work together on a common project. 

The pro gram of these residences is decidedly orientated towards what is current in national and international artistic creation. Each project will be composed around two or three resident artists for a period of six months. Two or three artists will be present steadily on the Island, but this group may also include others whose intervention will be fundamental for the project. The residence will thus function in accordance with a principle of rotation of the participants in a common project.

Modes of selection

The choice of the project is made by the directors together with the scientific committee.
The selection of the residents will be made according to criteria of quality, involvement and professionalism, and two categories of candidates will be privileged by the committee:

-Emerging artists of renown and a potential for success, whom residence can help to develop professionally;

-Artists with an established national or international reputation for whom a change of location can offer a new outlook.

Each project will have the benefit of a scholarship as well as a production allowance. The artists will be received in two six-month stays per year.

The different objectives of the artists’ residence

For a cultural establishment like the Centre international d’art et du paysage of Vassivière Island, starting a residence project has two objectives: at the same time the concern to valorize a natural and cultural heritage, and to favor and support contemporary artistic creation.

These residences on Vassivière Island aim above all to be a place for carrying out and producing original projects, a place for research and reflection. The Centre d’art is not concerned with setting a policy of acquiring works which will be created during the artists’ stay, but aims rather to become an important platform for artistic production within a multidisciplinary perspective, a living space for meetings and research – a “center of Utopias”.
 
The conductor thread of this cultur al and artistic development project of the Centre international d’art et du paysage of Vassivière Island is the absolute conviction that by concentrating on one sole project, that project is killed. If on the other hand it is integrated into a larger project with new and different dimensions, then it will enjoy a full life.

Vassivière Island is known as a landscape and as a place for contemporary art. This double image must be safeguarded within a coherent and legitimate global positioning, and with choices selected with vigorous criteria. But this should be done not by overbidding the attractive capacity that the Island already has, with its landscape, its lake and its post-modern architectural heritage, but rather by endeavoring to continue and to progress with what is new.

Courtesy: Berger & Berger - Building-Buillding