Open Call for Residency Urbane Künste Ruhr

Dec. 15, 2023

Urbane Künste Ruhr invites artists who are interested in working with local networks and public meeting places to take part in a three-month residency for the upcoming 2024 season. The residency is part of the ‘Healing Complex’ project. Two positions will be allocated for the residency. Interested artists can apply individually or jointly; applications from collectives are also very welcome.

Since June 3, 2022, Urbane Künste Ruhr has been running the project ‘Healing Complex’ (2018–ongoing) in Gelsenkirchen, which was initiated by the artist Irena Haiduk based on the model of antique building complexes that combined art and healing. Irena Haiduk’s artistic practice links the symbolic capital of the art field with real economies, which is particularly relevant in a post-industrial region such as the Ruhr area.

The residency at the Healing Complex offers the opportunity to intensively explore the project, the existing networks and the urban-social context in Gelsenkirchen Erle over a period of 12 weeks. The stay is divided into two phases: The first six weeks lend themselves to an examination of the location and offer the opportunity to use the Healing Complex for research and as a studio in order to develop a situation-specific project. This conception phase is followed by a six-week implementation period, during which the previously conceived project is to be realized on site and addressed to a broad public. The residency takes place from April to June 2024.

Based on the results of the first two exhibition phases at the Healing Complex in 2022 and 2023, the guest artist residency offers the option of exploring forms of networks and testing the opening and activation of artistic institutions and urban spaces. However, the Healing Complex is just as well suited for an examination of the architecture of the modern church building, which was erected in 1963, as well as the history of the Erle district, whose origins are shaped by mining.

The guest artist residency is aimed at professionally working international and national artists and collectives who are interested in social, situational and site-specific contexts in their artistic work.