a tale of a tub open call for artistic residency

In September, we will be piloting our first residency, a new annual aspect of our program aimed at drawing on the residential context we are situated in. Simply put, the goal of this first residency is to support a Rotterdam-based artist/artist collective through the developmental stages of a project, and to do so in a way that both inhabits and activates our space differently. Given that it’s the ‘pilot’, it is also a way to learn together about what the needs of a resident might be, and about what kind of home the space can provide for art-making when we’re not just thinking about a public-facing program.

Generally speaking, the historical, communal and residential functions of our location in the former bathhouse and washhouse of the Justus van Effencomplex provide a basis for our program. In taking the past social life of the space as a guiding principle, we try to work in an intersectional manner to bring a range of people, places and (urgent) ideas into conversation through art. In this way, international perspectives and contexts are placed in dialogue with local concerns and needs—and vice versa—and the question of what a small-to-medium-sized art institution located on the edge of a city can do (and be!) is always at the front of our minds.

The selected resident is not expected to address the location of A Tale of A Tub directly through their work, but practices that align with any of the above approaches will be favoured—whether that be working intersectionally, context-specifically or in a situated way, or with questions of instituting or social and material need at the heart of the work. We want to make clear that this is not an outcome-driven residency, i.e. you don’t have to produce something by the end. It is specifically for developing on a particular thread of your practice and doing so within a supportive context and without the pressure to perform.