Announcing the 2025 Villa Albertine Residencies

Explore each resident’s project here.

Villa Albertine today revealed the 50+ international creatives—from choreographers to artisans, musicians to filmmakers—who will embed in 28 US cities for exploratory residencies in 2025. A research expedition of sorts designed for people in the arts and culture, these one-to-three-month exploratory residencies are tailor-made to each resident’s project and embody Villa Albertine’s mission to build substantive exchange and lasting collaboration between French and American cultural communities. To consolidate its support for classical music, for the first time since launching the residency program in 2021, Villa Albertine dedicated a specific call for artists and professionals of the field, with support from Societe Generale. 

Anchored in 10 US cities, Villa Albertine disrupts the traditional residency model. Rather than hosting residents in a single location, the French cultural institution provides accommodations, partners, and materials for residents wherever their research needs them to be. 

“Villa Albertine is an absolutely extraordinary organization that stretches across the entire breadth of the United States, bringing together intellectuals, artists, and creative types to think and learn from each other. In this way it actually represents what I think of as the 21st century, where we no longer are centered in one location, but we work in networks and circuits across many locations,” said David Rockefeller MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry, president of the selection jury. 

Each residency is exploratory; the emphasis is on meaningful engagement and the conception of new ideas, rather than the production of completed work.  While the focus of the residencies is on investigation, development, and process, it is not to the exclusion of completed work. Villa Albertine residencies have indeed provided a springboard for artists to write best-selling novels (Alain Damasio’s Vallée du silicium, 2024), publish new graphic novels (Alice Chemama’s Touchez pas aux grizzlys in Revue Topo, 2024), debut dance pieces (Noé Soulier’s “In the Fall”), curate exhibitions (Djellali El Ouzeri’s Marslanta), as well as initiate numerous narrative and documentary film projects, podcasts, and multimedia installations.  

“Since the launch of Villa Albertine’s residency program, our robust network of more than 200 alumni have used their experiences to nurture lasting projects and partnerships that are making waves in culture on both sides of the Atlantic. We’re thrilled to welcome this new cohort to the United States, and to help launch their brilliant and cutting-edge projects across numerous disciplines,” said Mohamed Bouabdallah, Cultural Counselor of France in the United States and Director of Villa Albertine. 

The selected residents for 2025 represent 10 nationalities and range from age 21 to 62. They will illuminate Double Dutch histories in New York, sketch ecological architectures in Miami, trace exile and otherness in San Francisco, capture working class joy in Atlanta, and more. The full selection list is below. Explore each resident’s project here.

Residency applications were open to creators, researchers, and culture professionals of all nationalities from November 2023 to February 2024. Local expert committees in each of Villa Albertine’s 10 cities convened to determine a shortlist. Subsequently, the final selection was made by an international jury chaired by David Rockefeller Director of MoMA, Glenn D. Lowry, and comprising Cultural Counselor of France in the US and Director of Villa Albertine, Mohamed Bouabdallah, award-winning novelist, Nicole Krauss, BAM President, Gina Duncan, Centre Pompidou President, Laurent Le Bon, Senior Executive Vice President of Acquisitions & Production at Sony Pictures Classics, Dylan Leiner, and President of the Institut français, Eva Nguyen Binh. You can find the full jury report here.  

Alongside a general call for applications, two calls for specialized residencies were open to professionals in the fields of crafts and design, and classical music, respectively. Each of these calls had its own selection jury.  

Applicants to the Crafts and Design residency, supported by the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, were selected by WantedDesign Co-Founders Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat, in collaboration with Villa Albertine’s visual arts and design experts.  

A new expansion of the residency program, the Classical Music residency is offered thanks to leadership support from Societe Generale. Its jury included Stéphanie Childress, former Villa Albertine resident and conductor; Edouard Fouré Caul-Futy, Co-Director of the Concerts and Shows Department at Philharmonie de Paris; Cristina Rocca, Vice-President of Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and Judith Roze, Deputy Cultural Counselor of France and Deputy Director of Villa Albertine. In addition to the calls for applications, certain residents will be selected through special initiatives and partnerships. For example, the winners of the Recanati-Kaplan Prize and the Pisar Prize will also earn a Villa Albertine residency.  

Applications for Villa Albertine’s 2026 residencies will open this fall.   

Villa Albertine’s 2025 Residencies 

Architecture 

• Sylvia AMAR – San Francisco 
• Meriem CHABANI – Chicago  
• Thomas COLDEFY, Isabel VAN HAUTE & Zoltán NEVILLE – Chicago, Miami 
• Wandrille MARCHAIS & David DOTTELONDE – Chicago  

Classical Music 

• Anne DE FORNEL – Boston, Washington DC 
• Théo OULD – Austin, Houston 
• Timothée VARON – New Orleans 

Craft and Design  

•  Aurélia MARTIN & Mathilde VAN STEENKISTE – Atlanta  
•  Yann MIRADA – Boston, Manchester, Providence 
•  Julia DEBORD-DANY – New York  
•  Alice RIEHL – New York 
•  Fanny SEROUART – New York  

Film and New Media  

•  Fabien BENOIT – Austin, Boca Chica, Brownsville 
•  Marguerite DE BOURGOING – New Orleans 
•  Justine EMARD – Boston  
•  Sepideh FARSI – New York 
•  Stéphanie GILLARD – South Dakota 
•  Giulia GROSSMANN – Boston, Woods Hole 
•  Léo HAMELIN – Los Angeles, New York, Saint Louis 
•  Nicolas KOULIBALE & Naïmé PERRETTE – Richmond  
•  OVIDIE – New York 
•  Cécile PALUSINSKI & Elsa MROZIEWICZ – Miami  

Books 

•  Prune ANTOINE – Houston  
•  Doan BUI – New York, San Francisco, San Jose 
•  Benjamin CARTERET & Sacha LLEWELLYN – Austin, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia 
•  Walid HAJAR RACHEDI – Atlanta  
•  Amélie MOUTON – Washington DC, Titusville 
•  Polina PANASSENKO – New York 
•  Vincent HAZARD & Daniel ALEXANDRE – Oklahoma City, Choctaw spots 

Museums and Heritage  

• Marine KISIEL – New York, San Francisco 
• Claire HOUMARD – Quinhagak  
• Nicolas MISERY – Los Angeles, Washington DC 

Music  

• Lorenzo BIANCHI-HOESCH – New York 
• Mélissa LAVEAUX – New Orleans 
• Laura PERRUDIN – Los Angeles 

Performing Arts  

• Bouziane BOUTELDJA & Magda BACHA – Miami  
• Lucie DOMENACH & Lou ORBLIN – Los Angeles 
• Florient JOUSSE – San Juan 
• Lasseindra NINJA – Atlanta, New York 

Social Sciences and Humanities  

• Pascale OBOLO – New York, Princeton  

Visual Arts  

• Théodora BARAT – Chicago  
• Julie BOURGES – San Francisco 
• Gabriel FONTANA – Los Angeles 
• Arthur FRANCIETTA – San Francisco 
• Laura HUERTAS MILLÁN – New York 
• Yohanne LAMOULÈRE – Atlanta  
• Léonard MARTIN – New Orleans 
• Marie-Ann YEMSI – Baltimore, Washington DC, New York  

The Recanati-Kaplan Prize and Pisar Prize laureates will also be part of the 2025 cohort and will be announced at a later date.

Villa Albertine’s residency program has received the leadership support of Societe Generale, as well as the support of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, the Recanati-Kaplan Foundation, AXA, Fondation Engie, Banque Transatlantique’s Fonds de dotation, The Florence Gould Endowment for Literary Exchange, and Ardian, as well as Villa Albertine’s individual donors.