Friday Salon: On Residencies

This session brings together Aaron Cezar (Delfina Foundation), Bobby Niven (The Bothy Project) and Laura Simpson (Hospitalfield Arts), to talk about the art residency programmes they manage.

Delfina Foundation is an independent, non-profit foundation dedicated to facilitating artistic exchange and developing creative practice through residencies, partnerships and public programming. Founded in 2007, Delfina Foundation promotes artistic exchange and experimentation. It creates opportunities for emerging and established artists, curators and writers to reflect on what they do, position their practice within relevant global discourse, create career-defining research and commissions, and network with colleagues. Delfina Foundation forges international collaborations to build shared platforms to incubate, to present and to discuss common practices and themes.

The Bothy Project is a network of small-scale, off-grid art residency spaces in distinct and diverse locations around Scotland and beyond. The objective is to create platforms for artists to journey and explore the peculiarities of the history, mythology, landscape and people in the areas surrounding the bothies. The Bothy Project was initiated by artist Bobby Niven and architect Iain MacLeod, realising the first art residency bothy in 2011 thanks to support from the RSA Residencies for Scotland programme. The Bothy Project are looking to grow the network, working in partnership with a broad range of organisations, artists, companies and sponsors to create an exploded network of unique off-grid dwellings. A range of residency opportunities through the Supported Programme, the Self-Funded Residencies and plans for future themed residencies, are offered.

A hospital built by monks to receive pilgrims making their way to the many spiritual sites in Arbroath and further north, Hospitalfield Arts has, over time, hosted and facilitated artists, students, educators, writers and others working within the broad themes of contemporary art, design and cultural ideas. Hospitalfield Arts has had a central role in the arts and cultural ecology of Scotland for a very long time, as an organisation facilitating the development of cultural ideas and residency opportunities of various kinds. The Interdisciplinary Residency Programme for instance has been devised to appeal across all artforms, it has been planned as an opportunity to support those working across the arts who recognise that they require some time to focus on the development of their work.

View our Artists' Index for more information about this year's Bloomberg New Contemporaries, including Artist Statements.