To Pause, Rethink and Reimagine Art Residencies
Seminario a cargo de Javier Martín Jiménez

As part of the activities of the OPEN Buenos Aires: International Encounter for Emerging Printmakers, we received in Buenos Aires Javier Martín Jiménez, resident curator of the Conde Duque Center for Contemporary Culture (Madrid). Javier dictated at the CCEBA—Cultural Center of Spain in Buenos Aires, and within the program FUTURA: Tools for a Culture in Movement, a seminar/workshop entitled Pausing, Rethinking and Reimagining Artistic Residencies. This seminar was dedicated to cultural managers who work in or with artistic residencies, and started from the following questions: How to guarantee the continuity and stability of artistic residency programs? How to professionalize your management? How to motivate, from the public administrations, the creation of new residency spaces? How to guarantee networking with other professionals at a time of necessary institutional collaboration? How to retain communities to create a culture of proximity? How to reach a child or youth audience? How to work on sustainability from this framework and with an eye on the future?

These questions served as triggers for collective conversations regarding the field of culture, in general, and artistic residences, in particular. Through case studies, it was possible to appreciate different tools and strategies created and developed by Javier from the private sphere (both from a cultural company and a non-profit association) and from the public sphere (from a regional government and from a municipal institution). The investigation of these examples allowed us to analyze both the successes and the (necessary) failures to learn from both with the intention of building from creativity, but without repeating mistakes.

OPEN Buenos Aires is a collaboration between Fundación´ace for Contemporary Art (Argentina) and the ARTHAZI-FIG Bilbao Association (Basque Country, Spain). It has the support of the Mecenazgo—Impulso Cultural program of the City of Buenos Aires; CCEBA – Cultural Center of Spain in Buenos Aires; Embassy of Spain; CIEC Foundation (Galicia, Spain); Government of the City of Buenos Aires; Etxepare Euskal Institua (Basque Country, Spain); Provincial Council of Bizkaia (Basque Country, Spain). Banco MACRO (Argentina) is the sponsor of OpenBA, Alicia Candiani (Argentina) is its Director and David Arteagoitia (Basque Country, Spain) is the Director of Open Portfolio.