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To measure the difference that may exist between a tourist and an artist-in-residence, it seems pertinent to first examine the \u201ctouristicity\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200athe touristic potential\u200a\u2014\u200aof the locations where residencies appear, in order to determine whether they get set up in areas specifically because of their natural or cultural features, for example. As artists tend to look for an inspiring or calm place in which to work, residencies are usually far away from sites of mass tourism. Nonetheless, many residency programs are associated with ecological, social, or rural regeneration projects or policies, which can ultimately contribute to making the area attractive to tourists. This is the case for Les Arques, a commune in the Lot department, in France, which has rebuilt its appeal by establishing an artist residency in the middle of the village. To combat the exodus of the 1980s, when the migration of its population to cities led to many buildings being abandoned, the villagers decided to revitalize the place by hosting artists. Dilapidated buildings were transformed into studios and workshops, and, a few decades later, Les Arques has become a popular tourist destination.^{5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 5 <\/a> - G\u00e9rard Laval, Patrice Beghain, and Julie Crenn, eds., 1988-2018 : Les Ateliers des Arques<\/em> (Albi: Un autre reg\u2019art, 2019).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regeneration projects sometimes go through more complex formulations, in which tourist attractions shore up residency projects. Born on small, remote Fogo Island located in northern Newfoundland, Antony, Alan, and Zita Cobb decided, after having to leave the island for their economic survival, to create the Shorefast Foundation with the aim of giving new life to the place. The cod fishery began to collapse in the 1960s, creating hardship and leading many islanders to leave. The foundation promotes \u201ca new path at the intersection of business, philanthropy, and community economic development\u201d and aims to \u201cunleash the power of place so local communities can thrive in the global economy.\u201d^{6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 6 <\/a> - \u201cOur Work,\u201d Shorefast<\/em>, last modified 2023, accessible online.<\/span> The project began by creating an artist residency but also focused on bringing in tourism. Three businesses were set up, including a luxury hotel\u200a\u2014\u200aFogo Island Inn\u200a\u2014\u200awhich reinvests into the community the entirety of the profits gained from its affluent clientele.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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$\"FogoIsland\"$ <\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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$\"FogoIsland\"$
Squish Studio views, Tilting, 2014 et 2020.
Photos: Alex Fradkin, courtesy of Fogo Island Arts, Fogo Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Identifying with \u201cgeotourism\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200atourism that supports patrimony, community, and environment\u200a\u2014\u200athe project requires the temporary presence of artists as well as that of wealthy travellers. The question arises as to the impact of the type of tourists who support the project. They are people who seek to have extraordinary experiences and to visit unspoiled, pristine places in order to get away from mass tourism; yet they are also among the 10 percent of people on Earth who are responsible for half of the global emissions. Although well aware that tourism could lead to a destructive imbalance,^{7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 7 <\/a> - Chantal Gaudreault, \u201cFogo, l\u2019\u00eele nordique de tous les possibles,\u201d Inter<\/em>, no. 131 (Winter 2019): 6\u200a-\u200a13.<\/span> the founders believe that it\u2019s a risk worth taking to stimulate the local economy. Mixed projects that associate a hotel residence and an artist residency are not uncommon. Although these remote residencies, like many others, do not exist in strictly touristic places in the true sense of the word, they nevertheless convey a certain idea of tourism and even contribute to touristic desire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Verpejos$
Shepherds and Spindles, Kabeliai, 2023.
Photo: Neringa Greiciute, courtesy of
Verpejos (The Spinners)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The characteristics of a place are not sufficient, therefore, to radically distinguish tourists from artists-in-residence. So, can we differentiate between them based on their reasons for being in a region? A driving motivation for tourists is to relax and not do anything or, if they are actively travelling, to find a kind of freedom that is impossible to attain when they are at work, whereas artists attend residencies solely for the purpose of feeding their work, even when they are simply taking walks in the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professional motivations always remain present in the background, even when they are distant. In reality, artists are sometimes prompted to do something besides their own work; at the Shepherds and Spindles residency in Lithuania, for instance, they are required to take care of a herd of sheep. The account of an artist who has done this residency shows that disconnecting professionally sometimes takes priority: \u201cI didn\u2019t really connect with my artistic work. However, I connected with my wellbeing and with the fact that I had tons of ideas while I was herding the sheep.\u201d ^{8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 8 <\/a> - My interview with an artist-in-residence at Shepherds and Spindles, in Lithuania, November 27, 2023 (our translation).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
In short, there is an impression of taking a vacation that isn\u2019t really a vacation. Just as for tourists, there is a feeling of recreation, in the sense of a \u201creplenishment of body and spirit,\u201d ^{9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 9 <\/a> - Philippe Duhamel, G\u00e9ographie du tourisme et des loisirs : Dynamiques, acteurs, territoires<\/em> (Paris: Armand Colin, 2018), 27 (our translation).<\/span> due to the displacement that the sojourn elicits, yet with underlying professional objectives that can never be entirely disregarded. The conditions of access remind us of this. Whereas tourists can go wherever they wish when the economic and political conditions allow, artists must submit an application or receive an invitation and are sometimes subject to significant constraints, such as temporarily leaving their families and being implicitly obligated to produce work, convey content, and even create sociability. The residency ties them to it by contract, which also imposes a particular length of time or encourages them to abide by specific rules. For example, to counter a mobility that is harmful for the ecology, residency directors are increasingly encouraging artists to stay in residency for longer periods or to use land transportation.^{10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 10 <\/a> - This is the case for the Saari Residence, in Myn\u00e4m\u00e4ki, Finland, which is very committed to the environment and subsidizes land travel, thought to be more ecological.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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It therefore appears that artists-in-residence obey a paradoxical injunction: to immerse themselves in an unfamiliar environment, benefit from the exceptional landscape, and have unforgettable encounters, while also working to advance their careers. Even if the artist residency contributes to a form of recreation for the artist, its temporalities and objectives are not those of tourists on vacation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Finish curator Taru Elfving qualifies this dual constraint and even goes so far as to state that the residency may be the only space-time in which artists are considered solely artists, as opposed to other periods in their professional life when a multitude of tasks and roles takes them away from their art practice.^{11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 11 <\/a> - Taru Elfving, \u201cImagine a World Without Travel? Artist Residencies in the Future Present,\u201d Finnish Cultural Institute in New York<\/em>, accessible online.<\/span> Although artists, like tourists, are often considered for the added value that they are likely to bring to a region, it is their ability to map out a terrain, connect with its residents and stakeholders, produce knowledge, and work with experts or scientists, rather than drain an economy, that distinguishes them from tourists. Research on tourism emphasizes that although it produces alterity, it constitutes a moment of learning and cohabitation with the permanent residents, but artists distinguish themselves further through their ability to co-construct something with the terrain and its inhabitants that goes beyond simple co-presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"AdA_Jean-Se\u0301bastien-Lagrange\"$
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange<\/strong>
Do not Seat<\/em>, installation view, Les Arques, 2023.
Photo: Nelly Blaya, courtesy of
Les Ateliers des Arques, Les Arques <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The increase in socially engaged practices translates into integrated residency programs, which develop fieldwork and invite artists to contribute to solving problems in a region. Many residencies offer artists immersive stays and choose unique programs associated with local or global environmental and societal issues; they therefore become sites of production.^{12<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 12 <\/a> - Angela Serino, \u201cArtists Residencies: Which Kind of Institutions Are They? A Conversation with Laura Windagher (Part 1\/2),\u201d ON Residencies<\/em>, April 14, 2015, accessible online.<\/span> Located in Hyrynsalmi, Finland, just below the Arctic Circle, and surrounded by almost intact old-growth forests now threatened by climate change and human activity, Mustarinda has a polymorphic structure, combining a residency, an energy system, a forest, and a garden, all integrated into a community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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$\"Mustarinda\"$
Working space in barn,
Mustarinda Residency, Hyrynsalmi.
Photo: Sallamari Rantala<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Mustarinda focuses on advancing social cohesion and eco-social wellbeing, which are considered crucial to an ecological transition. Socially learning to become adaptable to future challenges, based on the presence of the old-growth forest and the non-humans populating it, happens by working with the local population and creating a shared eco-social wellbeing.^{13<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 13 <\/a> - Robin Everett, Catherine Lee, Sally Mizrachi, Sanna Ritvanen, and Nicholas Weist, \u201cNew Models for Communing: Residency Programming and Strategies,\u201d in Bringing Worlds Together: A Rethinking Residencies Reader<\/em>, eds. Kari Conte and Susan Hapgood (New York: Rethinking Residencies, 2023), 49\u200a-70.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Artists-in-residence also have the ability to produce collective knowledge, create relationships,^{14<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 14 <\/a> - Nathalie Desmet, \u201cUn mod\u00e8le d\u2019\u00e9changes citoyens et collaboratifs : les r\u00e9sidences d\u2019artistes,\u201d Lien social et Politiques<\/em>, no. 91 (2023): 225\u200a-\u200a46, accessible online.<\/span> and even produce \u201ccontact zones and productive frictions,\u201d as scholars Michael Lithgow and Karen Wall underscore.^{15<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 15 <\/a> - Michael Lithgow and Karen Wall, \u201cEmbedded Aesthetics: Artist-in-Residencies as Sites of Discursive Struggle and Social Innovation, Seismopolite<\/em>, no. 19 (2017), accessible online.<\/span> Through the ecologies that they construct, residencies and those who participate in them seem to escape the rationale of the \u201ctourist gaze,\u201d^{16<\/sup><\/a><\/span>} 16 <\/a> - John Urry, The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies<\/em> (London: Sage Publications, 1990).<\/span> a concept that posits the pre-eminence of the gaze in the construction of contemporary tourism and which corresponds to an exclusively visual appropriation of the places visited. Although the visual establishes the tourist gaze, aesthetic (in the sensory meaning of the term) and social approaches seem to better define the experience of the artist-in-residence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
A professor in the theory and practice of contemporary art at the Paris 8 Vincennes\u2013Saint-Denis University, Nathalie Desmet is interested in curatorial practices and the contexts and conditions of emerging artistic activities. She is also an art critic and curator.<\/p>\n\n\n
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>\n
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>
Jean-S\u00e9bastien Lagrange, Laura Garb\u0161tiene, Liam Gillick, Nathalie Desmet, Romain Gandolphe<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever since the Grand Tour of Europe came into vogue in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, artists have been encouraged to travel and encounter other cultures. The increasing availability of art [NOTE count=1]residencies[\/NOTE][REF count=1]In this article, I do not discuss production residencies, which offer artists technical equipment and support to make work, or mediation residencies, whose primary aim is aligned with a democratization of culture.[\/REF] in distant and unusual places reflects the ever-closer connections to the idea of tourism. Being a tourist implies \u201ctemporarily living in places other than in one\u2019s everyday [NOTE count=2]context\u201d[\/NOTE][REF count=2]Giorgia Ceriani, Mathis Stock, Philippe Duhamel, and R\u00e9my Knafou, \u201cLe tourisme et la rencontre de l\u2019autre : Voyage au pays des id\u00e9es re\u00e7ues,\u201d [em>L\u2019autre<\/em> 6, no. 1 (2005): 74 (our translation).[\/REF] and promises\u200a\u2014\u200aas it does for the artist-in-residence\u200a\u2014\u200aan experience of time and space outside of the contingencies and constraints of daily life, often entailing travel that has a significant impact on the environment.<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":249515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,882],"tags":[],"numeros":[6937],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[927],"artistes":[6944,6945,6946,6947],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[319],"class_list":{"0":"post-250403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-post","9":"numeros-111-tourism","10":"auteurs-nathalie-desmet-en","11":"artistes-jean-sebastien-lagrange-en","12":"artistes-laura-garbstiene-en","13":"artistes-liam-gillick-en","14":"artistes-romain-gandolphe-en","15":"type_post-principal"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270808,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250403\/revisions\/270808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=250403"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=250403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}