[Announcement] Planting A.I.R - Artists in Residence: Second edition kick-off

Greetings from Arroz Estúdios!

After a couple of months planning the second edition of Planting A.I.R - Artists in Residence, we’ve finally kicked-off with the residency program!

Planting A.I.R - Artist In Residence invites artists and creatives with low-income backgrounds to apply for a physical residency taking place at Arroz Estúdios, in Lisbon. For a period of two months, artists and creatives can develop their practice and get involved in the NEAR platform as a tool to create and develop their own projects within the ecosystem.

After a successful first edition in 2021, we have launched the second edition, which has recently started. As part of this residency program, we offer:

  • Working studio space
  • Monthly fee for the selected artists
  • Material expenses and equipment
  • Events space to promote and exhibit the work developed during the residency
  • Training, integration and involvement NEAR ecosystem
  • Mentoring program by Arroz Estúdios permanent residents
  • Inclusion in a big creative international community

For this second edition, we’ve created three cycles of residency that will take place between February and July 2022, where we’ll accommodate two artists each two months, for a total of six artists.

The Open Call for this program was launched in December 2021 and we got a total of 40 applicants. After a lot of reading, pre-selection, interviews and discussion (good to mention that we were all very aligned :star_struck:), we’ve concluded the selection process for the 1st and 2nd cycle of residencies. For February and March, we welcome Tomás Santos (tomassnts.near) and Nkaka Sessa. Tomás is graduating from his painting course at Ar.Co and is exploring different approaches in his work such as painting, drawing, 3D and music. Nkaka is into music and plans to record his EP during this residency program. The onboarding process in the NEAR platform started past week, with an Intro workshop by @StevenR and @vandal .

We’ll be dropping updates on Planting A.I.R - Artists in Residence, so stay tuned :wink:

A thank you note to:
NEAR, for making this residency program possible via the grants program
@lamour and @Mette for your support throughout the programming and selection process
Eric Hanu and Mitch Von Arx for being part of the mentoring program

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Very excited to be part of this and to be able to carry on this beautiful project initiated by @JulianaM !

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Happy to hear/read all of this! Keep up the great work you’re doing!
This is a beautiful project indeed :heart_decoration: :heart_decoration: Looking fwd to see the projects in person soon when I come back to Portugal :smiling_face:

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