Remote Artist Residency, what are you doing?

I've drafted a few posts on here recently but I haven't been publishing them. The writing has lacked spark and I want to offer you something worth reading. Waymarkers was never meant to be fully resolved or polished though; that would be a very high bar to set for myself on top of everything else. Instead, I want to write something I am happy enough to release into the wild without agonising over its quality. So, here is a notebook that I am leaving open for public view.

Remote Artist Residency was a seven-week experiment that took place in June and July 2026. I wanted to know if you can have an artist residency where the artists don't have to go anywhere.

I wrote about the idea at the beginning of the project and I've already made the funding-friendly argument for it (thanks Creative Communities for supporting it). Now I'm interested in what happens next.

Can this kind of residency be successful? How should we measure success anyway? Should it be called a residency at all? Could it be called 'paying artists to make work' instead?

My residency can't replace employment or add days to the week or temporarily remove barriers to creative endeavour. It can't give someone a month of uninterrupted studio time. It can't make the rest of life disappear. But it can create some paid time for artists to think, to make and to talk to other artists, and I want to know if it has been enough.

Artists, we know our sector doesn't work in our favour. We know it is weighted heavily towards elitism and it clumsily favours some types of artist over others.

Residencies are an interesting example of this. Most ask artists to prioritise their practice above everything else: to travel somewhere, leave behind dependents, step away from employment, and situate themselves in another place for weeks or months.

How many jobs ask you to do that?

Residencies make assumptions: that artists are financially stable; that they are very young or much older; that they don't have dependents, or have someone who can care for them in their absence; that they are in good health and have no disabilities or chronic health concerns.

I should say that I'm not here to hate on residencies, I just want to unpack them and find out what their limitations are. I want to find other ways to do things. Part of my practice is to notice systems and how they are serving us, or working against us.

Uninterrupted time to make work is necessary and residencies absolutely do this. Work needs an expanse of time to delve into ideas and even more time for the work to materialise. But can small pockets of financially compensated time go some way towards that?

What happens when the residency fits around people's lives rather than asking their lives to fit around the residency?

If you bring four artists together, back them with a small envelope of cash that supports time and materials, give them some structure, some peer connection and a secure exhibition opportunity, is that something worth doing?

This is what Remote Artist Residency is asking.

Though the project was officially seven weeks long, the work initiated is ongoing. I've asked the artists to reflect on it so far and I'll share their responses soon.

What's your take on artist residencies? How else can artists be supported beyond the status quo? I'd love to hear from you in the discussion below.