Providenza is a residency located in the middle of nature in the North Corsican mountains. It is a multidisciplinary laboratory that intersects the arts and sciences while bringing together international, Corsican, and Mediterranean artists and researchers.
Its core program consists, since 2018, of an annual transdisciplinary residency immersed in nature, while other residency programs take place in partnership with other European institutions.
Annual residency
During a three-weeks session, Providenza's main residency program welcomes between eight and twelve residents whose projects question our contemporary world. The program focuses on visual and sound creations in various forms, particularly in those in connection with the living enviroment and Mediterranean cultures or that explore the interactions between nature and technology, but also remains open to any other type of project.
Priority is given to projects that would particularly benefit from time spent working on the land.
Being a deliberately broad playing ground, the priority of this program is to share a unique and joyful spirit of encounters. Cultivated for several years outside of any conventional format, we believe its hybridity can allow the emergence of new artistic forms.
Candidates apply for projects that may fall under different disciplines but which have in common an original formal research approach in the following areas:
- Fiction and documentary cinema, video art
- Music and sound arts
- Visual and plastic arts, crafts
- Literature, poetry
- Sciences, biology, geology, cuisine,
- Agriculture and participatory projects
As examples, here is a selection of projects from past residencies:
Documentary film projetcs (Emmanuel Gras, Joshua Bonnetta' recidencies), fiction film projects (Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel), video art (Lola Gonzalez, Emilija Skarnulyte), music and sound arts (Laurel Halo, Lafawndah, Colin Self, Bing and Ruth), visual and plastic arts, sculptures (Joanie Lemercier, Thomas Teurlai, Antonin Hako), writing (Alain Damasio, Mehdi Meklat, Zoe Cosson), cooking (Lei Sato), design arts (Nicolas Becker et Samantha Caldato) etc.
The international residents are selected by a jury of transdisciplinary experts. The program is for both established international artists and young emerging artists. A few places are reserved at each session for young Corsican artists who are eager to learn from more experienced foreign artists.
In some cases, selected residents who are not available during the month of June may be able to come to the site during the month of September when other residency programs are taking place.
Priority is given to projects that benefit from time spent on the land.
Each resident has private accommodation, in the form of a cabin under a chestnut tree, fully equipped, as well as permanent access to the site's infrastructures, including a music and post-production studio, various outdoor work spaces, indoor work rooms, sanitary facilities, a pool, a sauna, etc.
Residents are also invited for a few hours a week to take part in certain collective tasks of the farm or the project. At the end, the residency invites the grand public to view the works made either on site or in Bastia.
In partnership residencies
In partnership with different European institutions, several satellite residency programs take place every year. When it's possible, they happen simultaneously in September, allowing cross-disciplinary exchanges.
Semaine de la Critique - Next Step
Each year, The Critics' Week, one of the main selections of the Cannes Film Festival, accompanies young filmmakers selected at the festival in the development of their next feature film project through its Next Step program.
Starting in September 2023, Providenza and la Semaine de la Critique in partnership with la Sacem organize every year an on-site workshop, gathering about selected filmmakers with composers and authors. This program supports the development of ambitious independent films projects with a special focus on sound writing and scoring still in the development phase. Faithful to the direction that Providenza wishes to explore between cinema and musical composition, it is also for us a way to imagine specific cultural actions that would allow the filmmakers to meet young students from the Bastia region.
An open call will be launched in June after the Cannes Film Festival for French and international composers to apply. This is a second phase of the Next Step program, the first phase consisting of a writing residency program happening in Normandie at the Moulin d’Andé.
FIDLAB
The FIDLab is an international film coproduction platform that annually helps ten international film projects in their developmental phase. By accelerating coproductions, partnership and exposure, it is not rare that the selected independent films when completed are then selected in the most prestigious film festivals.
In 2022, the Fidlab created the Providenza Award, offering to one filmmaker the opportunity to work on his project during a three-weeks residency. The laureate is chosen by a dedicated jury during the Fidlab edition among all the Fidlab selected projects.
Previous editions:
2022: Lebanese filmmaker Mira Adoumier for her project The night came about.
Communities Between Islands
In partnership with Cherimus, a Sardinian art and residency organisation and the Museo Nivola, with Archipelago Network and the Syros International Film Festival on the island of Syros, Grece, Providenza, along with the FRAC Corsica, develops a program of trans-island residencies in the Mediterranean.
Starting in September 2023, groups of Mediterranean and international artists will be invited to experience a 5 weeks residency program which will allow them to travel from one island to another, encountering the communities around Syros and the Cyclades Islands, the Nebbio region in Northern Corsica and the Sulcis Iglesiente region in the South West of Sardegna. They will produce art pieces and create workshops which will then be promoted by every organisation and every island. This is only the beginning of a project which is based on the belief that we need to strengthen the cultural exchanges with our neighbours and open up our horizons by catching up a trans-islands dialogue which has been the cement of our Mediterranean culture for millennia.
The project is supported by Europe Creative and the European Commission.
New Music fields
Each year, Providenza accompanies a composer or musician in an ambitious collective project signifying a turning point in his or her career (opera, theatre, cinema project) involving interdisciplinary collaborations (directors, writers, musicians, dancers, etc.).
The residency takes the form of a two-week stay on site within one of the June or September residency sessions.
More information about the call for the 2023 edition soon.
Previous editions:
2022 : Lafawndah, opera project "Inanna's descent" - Teaser
2021 : Sophia Brous, opera project "The invisible mountain" - Press kit
Past residencies
