Presenting Villa Albertine’s 2026-27 Post-Residency Grantees
With the support of Ardian and partner institutions, including Villa Albertine, the Académie des Beaux Arts, the Institut français and Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, the post-residency program will allocate 21 grants ranging from $3,000 to $7,000 to support projects developed by former residents as an extension of the research conducted during their 2025 residency in the United States.
By helping bring these initiatives to fruition through partner organizations in France and the United States, the program aims to strengthen transatlantic exchange and creative thinking around contemporary issues.
The 17 alumni of Villa Albertine’s 2025 general residency program that have been awarded grants to advance their latest projects, selected by a jury of representatives from the Académie des Beaux Arts, the Institut français, and Villa Albertine, include:
Sylvia Amar will publish a book resulting from her residency, presenting Sim Van der Ryn’s work and the Bay Area’s history of sustainable architecture, landscape, and living practices. In addition, she will spearhead a tribute event for Sim Van der Ryn, in partnership with the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco.
Fabien Benoit will develop Rocketland, a documentary film project examining how SpaceX’s arrival in Brownsville, Texas transformed a long-neglected border city, bringing both promise and harm. Rocket launches, pollution, land privatization, and gentrification reshape daily life as tensions grow among residents over the future of the community.
Lorenzo Bianchi Hoesch will produce Immersive Maqam, a live immersive concert, and record an album combining traditional Middle Eastern instruments, voice, and real-time electronic music in a continuous sound flow enhanced by integrated light design.
Louise Cognard will produce an eight-episode narrative documentary podcast exploring the daily life of seafarers aboard a modern container ship crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Conceived as a radiophonic logbook, the series retraces her residency at sea from departure in Le Havre to arrival in Nouméa, with stopovers in the United States.
Marguerite de Bourgoing will invite violinist and film composer Sultana Isham—whom she met during her residency—to France to collaborate on the soundtrack of her documentary about the 19th-century Afro-Creole composer Edmond Dédé, a native of New Orleans who spent much of his career in France.
Sepideh Farsi will develop a theatre play centered on the intertwined destinies of Farah Diba, who would later become the Shah’s wife, and dissident activist Vida Hajebi. Conceived as an intimate dialogue between two former friends shaped by exile and political upheaval, the project will combine archival footage and cinematic storytelling to explore half a century of Iranian history.
Stéphanie Gillard will create a documentary film about Lakota Sioux veterans living in small communities along the Missouri River on the Standing Rock Reservation. Through scenes of daily life such as work, study, social gatherings, hunting, horse training, and attending Pow Wows, the documentary observes their efforts to rebuild their lives after returning from military service.
Giulia Grossman’s post-residency project involves filming a key sequence of her next film Ocean Spring, during a 15-day expedition to the Santa Barbara Basin. This deep-water site presents extreme environmental conditions: its seabed is entirely deoxygenated, yet some marine species persist there, offering a rare opportunity to observe survival strategies.
Vincent Hazard and Daniel Alexandre will organize an exhibition at the US Embassy in France, developed in partnership with the Choctaw Nation and academic experts, dedicated to the decisive yet little-known role of the Choctaw Code Talkers during World War I. The exhibition will coincide with the publication of a graphic novel by Éditions Dupuis.
Laura Huertas Millán will present Shadowboxing, a multi-channel film installation premiering at the Jeu de Paume as part of her solo exhibition exploring the concept of the pharmakon, which both heals and poisons. The work examines boxing rings as political and symbolic spaces for marginalized diasporic communities.
Mélissa Laveaux will investigates the links between the birth of jazz and blues, and the sex work and queer communities of early 20th-century New Orleans. Building on research initiated during her residency, the project will take shape both as a musical album and as a companion documentary series produced with Why So Serious Prod.
Pascale Obolo is developing a public work titled The Pan-African Library Will Not Be Colonized, to be presented during the NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1. Rooted in political publishing and decolonial methodologies, the project unfolds a Pan-African Library and a Sound Library operating as living archives while producing new oral histories.
Théo Ould will expand the contemporary accordion repertoire through a new American tour and a recording project, Accordion’s Trip in America, released by Alpha Classics. Building on collaborations initiated with composition students across U.S. universities, he will also premiere new large-scale works commissioned with partners including the Brussels Philharmonic and Dublin Symphony Orchestra.
Polina Panassenko will develop a musical reading based on the text inspired by research carried out during her residency in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, the largest Russian-speaking émigré community in the world. The project will incorporate fragments of interviews and photographs taken in Brighton Beach to create an immersive experience.
Laura Perrudin will present Kratos, an original hybrid performance centered on an augmented electric chromatic harp. The work creates a gesture-based performance language in which sound, visuals, and light respond organically to the performer’s movements, translating video game interaction principles into an expressive, embodied concert form.
Timothée Varon enters the production phase of his opera, Créoles, Fable Lyrique, inspired by Creole cultures and musical traditions. Scheduled to premiere at the Académie de l’Opéra national de Paris in Fall 2027, the work brings together a wide range of collaborators, including composer Ryan Harrison, whom he met during his residency in New Orleans. Harrison will travel to Paris and the Réunion Island to contribute to the development of the opera.
Marie-Ann Yemsi will return to Baltimore and New York to collaborate with archivists, gather additional materials, and commission critical texts for her upcoming exhibition and publication project centered on African American visual histories. The project will culminate in a presentation at the 2027 Rencontres d’Arles, at Fondation Luma, followed by a potential U.S. tour.
In addition, four post-residency grants have been awarded specifically to 2025 Craft & Design residents, with support from the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation as a founding sponsor:
Yann Mirada aims to scale up a wooden rocking chair concept—featuring universal mounting brackets developed during his residency—for industrial production, while documenting the process through a film to support its exhibition and promotion.
Alice Riehl has published a bilingual volume accompanying her two current exhibitions. In France, the Musée de la Toile de Jouy presents Herbarium Interior, a large-scale porcelain mural accompanied by videos, interviews, sound, and photographs. In the United States, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York features three recent porcelain murals, alongside process materials.
Fanny Serouart will complete and present a capsule collection of seven objects articulating a transatlantic dialogue between American glass craftsmanship and French leather savoir-faire, drawing on research conducted in Brooklyn and with the Corning Museum of Glass.
Mathilde Steenkiste and Aurélia Martin will conceive, design, and oversee the production of a collection of 10 textile quilts. Each quilt will feature a unique design and serve as a tool to support fine motor skills development for neurodivergent children and neurotypical children alike.
Villa Albertine’s post-residency grants are made possible thanks to the generous support of Ardian, the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the Institut français, and—for post-residency projects in Crafts & Design—the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller.