Residency Mazra’ah Media Art Residency for New Media Artists and Scholars
Opportunity Description
International Deadline: January 20, 2025 – The Saudi Ministry of Culture has announced a call for applications for its ‘Emerging New Media Artists’ Programme, set to take place at the soon-to-open Diriyah Art Futures (DAF) centre. The programme, which is targeted at emerging creatives from within the region and beyond, provides emerging artists with access to cutting-edge professional equipment, a production budget, and a wide range of multidisciplinary learning opportunities, including personal mentorship from prominent international digital artists.
Designed in collaboration with Le Fresnoy – Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France, DAF’s Emerging New Media Artists Programme is a one-year long programme supporting creative production training.
The programme is part of a wider partnership between the Ministry and Diriyah Company which will be launching Diriyah Art Futures as the region’s first centre dedicated to New Media Arts.
THEME
The 2025 residency theme, High-Resolution Dreams of Sand, celebrates DAF as a beacon of critical, creative and scholarly development, amplifying regional perspectives in New Media and Digital Art. The theme encourages participants to produce work that engages with the context of DAF’s physical location adjacent to Diriyah’s farms and interrogates the bridge between history and the future, inviting reflections on our human relationship with nature and technology. Residency proposals should resonate with contemporary issues, regional interests and global narratives, especially those emerging from the MENA region and the Global Majority.
ELIGIBILITY
Applicants will only be accepted from established writers, scholars and theorists in New Media and Digital Art, or technology and culture – preferably with a focus on the MENA region.
- We will accept applications from scholars addressing a broad range of topics across media
- or technology arts and culture. We invite applications from across the world and encourage
- participation from the MENA region.
- Scholars should submit a proposal indicating their intentions during the residency,
- including a proposal for new research or work to be produced or completed (if already
- in production) over the three-month period of the residency.
- The proposal should indicate how the work responds to the 2025 residency season theme
- High-Resolution Dream’s of Sand
BENEFITS
For DAF’s inaugural residency season, High-Resolution Dreams of Sand, we welcome proposals from established New Media Artists and Scholars. The three-month residency comprises two distinct streams for New Media Artists and Scholars. The inaugural three-month residency will launch in Spring 2025 (February – April). A 2nd 2025 period will be available.
- A three-month residency at Diriyah Art Futures, including travel to Riyadh (if needed).
- Accommodation and workspace within DAF’s creative environment,
- set against Diriyah’s historical backdrop.
- A production budget and full support from conceptualisation to execution,
- in collaboration with the DAF production team.
- Access to media production labs, studios and the DAF library.
- Opportunities to showcase work for broader recognition and engagement,
- including potential exhibitions, publications and artist monographs.
PROSPECTUS – No Entry Fee
Download Prospectus(.pdf)
About:
Diriyah Art Futures is an arts, research and educational center driven by a belief in the power of interdisciplinary creative practice at the intersection of art, science, and technology.
Initiated by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia, in partnership with Diriyah Gate Development Company (DGCL), the center is a home for New Media Arts and a location for collaboration, speculation and production by creative communities from across the globe for research, documentation, and new work.
Diriyah Art Futures
3029 King Faisal Rd
Al Bujairi, 7719, Riyadh 13712
Saudi Arabia
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