All Roads Lead Elsewhere. Recursive Paths Between Art and Ethnography

Abstract

The widespread practice of “being in residence” requires artists to temporarily reside and work in a specific location - the “art residency” - for varying periods of time, and it currently represents an important step in contemporary artistic production. This essay does not aim to map the heterogeneous features of artistic residencies, or residency programs as they are often called. Rather, it focuses on a specific segment where ethnographic research intersects with artistic practices within the context of the residency itself.

This essay is structured around three autobiographical writings, as related to residencies attended by the author, an artist with a background in anthropology. Its aim is to articulate, within the ongoing theoretical debate, a self-reflexive discourse through these case studies, from the perspective of their subjective, positional terrain.