Villa Albertine, in partnership with the Ford Foundation, is welcoming thinkers, creators, or culture professionals from the African continent to complete a residency in the US.
The selected laureates will get the opportunity to complete a two-month exploratory residency in a city in the United States in 2024.
This residency program aims to promote unique creative voices and practices from Africa with the potential to shed light on major contemporary issues, as well as open up new perspectives.
Eligibility requirements
- Applicants must be citizens of an African country, and their professional activity must be based primarily in Africa.
- Applicants should be able to speak English. Fluency in French is not required
- A three-minute video introducing yourself and the project should be sent
- Applicants must be at least 21 years of age before their estimated residency start date.
- This call is open to individual applications only; collective group applications shall not be accepted.
- Current health regulations require all non-American citizens travelling to the US to have had at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccination. Applicants must comply with US entry regulations.
Exploratory residency projects
Villa Albertine’s exploratory residency project is a field investigation to foster inspiration and build new connections. They may be based on a new proposal devised specifically for Villa Albertine, or on pre-existing research that would benefit from new and unique development in the US.
All disciplines related to the arts, culture, and ideas are welcome. Applicants may submit projects from fields such as the visual arts, design, architecture, performance, music, cinema, digital creation, fiction writing, comic books, or social science, among others.
Applicants will be asked to submit a two-month residency project that is rooted in a specific US city, to be chosen either from one of the ten cities in which Villa Albertine has established a permanent branch or another US city.
Villa Albertine pursues specific thematic areas in a number of these cities, such as the environment in Miami, space exploration in Houston, institutional reform in Washington DC, etc. Applicants may choose to explore either these given themes or others that would be relevant to the desired geographical area. Short summaries of these cities may be found here, along with their related themes and issues.
Benefits of the residency program
- A residency allowance to cover everyday expenses (meals, local transport, etc.), based on the average cost of living for each of the ten geographical areas where Villa Albertine has a branch;
- A round trip to the US from the resident’s home country;
- Accommodation
- Health, civil liability, and repatriation insurance; and any necessary visa fees.
Each applicant must get their residency project backed by a partner institution from France or the French cultural network in Africa (i.e. local French Cultural Service or Institut français).
Applicants may only submit one application for this call. Any applications deemed incomplete or failing to meet these conditions shall not be considered. Any untruthful representations shall automatically render the application null and void.
Application process
Applications shall be submitted by email to the following email address no later than 11:59 p.m. (Paris time) on March 10, 2023:
Find out more here before sending applications to:
applications@villa-albertine.org
Applications must include the five following elements:
- A completed applicant information form, which may be downloaded via this link
- A presentation of the applicant’s career and work
- A three-minute video of the applicant speaking in English
- A presentation of the proposed residency project
- A letter from the chosen residency partner
Applicants shall be notified at the end of May whether their application has been successful.
