50+ global creators, researchers, and culture professionals selected for Villa Albertine’s 2024 residency program
By Villa Albertine
The international creatives will embed across 26 US cities for custom-designed research residencies focused on today’s great global issues
New York, May 24, 2023 – Villa Albertine today announced the 50 projects selected for its multidisciplinary residency program. Throughout 2024, international creatives will embed in 26 US cities for one- to three-month exploratory research expeditions. In line with Villa Albertine’s mission to support global exchange in arts and ideas, each of the residency projects selected for 2024 brings a unique creative perspective to the great issues of our time, from California wildfires and rising sea levels that threaten the shores of Miami and Louisiana to space exploration laboratories in Texas.
Villa Albertine reinvents the traditional residency model. Rather than hosting all residents in a single location, Villa Albertine, which launched in 2021, custom designs each residency according to the project needs. Residents are connected with bespoke accommodations, partners, and materials in the American city of their choice. Villa Albertine residencies are exploratory; the emphasis is on meaningful engagement with the American landscape and communities and the conception of new ideas, rather than the production of a completed work. Villa Albertine has already hosted 160 residents in 50 US cities.
The residents selected for 2024 are diverse in age (21 to 58), race, gender, and nationality (representing 15 countries). Equally diverse are the residents’ projects. Exploring ancestral handcraft and its implementation with modern technology, Joseph Arzoumanov-Dhedin plans to develop his experimental practice of gold embroidery through exchange with the creative and tech industries in Boston. Author Céline Minard will study the Los Angeles River rehabilitation project to inform a literary conception of the city reinhabited by the species that have been alienated from it. Working with the Black stand-up scene in Chicago, composer Christophe Chassol and Boris Memmi will explore the musicality of the spoken word in African American Vernacular English. For her next documentary, Johanna Makabi will follow the career of a young African-American ballerina and her fight to reclaim the land of her ancestors. Graphic novelist Julia Bourdet will travel cross-country by bike and train to capture an America grappling with the effects of climate change. The full selection list is below.
Jury chair Glenn D. Lowry said, “In little under two years Villa Albertine has created a residency program for the 21st century. Decentralized and bespoke, it operates at a scale that is both remarkable and unique, nurturing connections between hundreds of residents and as many American professionals across the country. It is a compelling model that enables a broad range of residencies and projects across the United States that bring a refreshing approach to contemporary issues.”
“We were honored to receive a record number of applications this year, and of exceptionally high quality. This enthusiasm to explore different perspectives and geographies as part of the conception of new work is exactly what we set out to support when we flipped the traditional residency model on its head. It’s no longer the artist’s job to adapt to the institution, but rather institutions, and especially residencies, that can and should adapt to artists’ specific needs and desires, helping them explore artistic territories never seen before,” said Gaëtan Bruel, Director of Villa Albertine.
Applications were open to artists, researchers, and culture professionals of all nationalities from November 22, 2022 to February 1, 2023. In total, 715 applications were received. Local expert committees in each of Villa Albertine’s 10 hubs convened last month to determine a shortlist. The final selection was made by an international jury chaired by MoMA President Glenn D. Lowry and comprising Director of Villa Albertine Gaëtan Bruel, writer, publisher, and former Villa Albertine resident Adrien Bosc, BAM President Gina Duncan, Film at Lincoln Center President Lesli Klainberg, Centre Pompidou President Laurent Le Bon, and President of the Institut français Eva Nguyen Binh.
Read the full jury report on Villa Albertine’s website.
Alongside the main call for applications, certain residents will be selected through special initiatives and partnerships. For example, the winners of certain annual art awards, including the Prix Marcel Duchamp, Prix AWARE, Recanati-Kaplan Prize, Sarr Prize, and Beauford Delaney Grant, will also earn a Villa Albertine residency. Since the creation of Villa Albertine, the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation has additionally supported all of the Craft and Design residencies, selected within the framework of the general and discipline-specific calls for applications.
A multi-year partnership with the Ford Foundation ensures ongoing, dedicated support for residents from the African continent. Five of the residents for 2024 were selected through this separate call for applications. The selection jury for these residencies included Joy Bivins, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, Jay Pather, South African choreographer, curator, academic, and 2023 Villa Albertine resident, and Felwine Sarr, Senegalese academic, musician and writer.
Applications for Villa Albertine’s 2025 residencies will open this fall.
The 2024 residency program is made possible in partnership with FACE Foundation, thanks to the support of Friends of Villa Albertine, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of France in the United States, the French Ministry of Culture, the Institut français, The Florence Gould Foundation, Fondation Bettencourt Schueller, The Ford Foundation, Fondation Louis Roederer, and Fondation diptyque.
Villa Albertine’s 2024 Residencies
Craft and Design
- Joseph Arzoumanov-Dhedin – Boston
- Jean-Marc Bullet – New York
- Garance Maurer – San Francisco
- Juliane Morel – New York
- Céline Salomon – New York
Film and New Media
- Davy Chou – Chicago
- Farah-Clémentine Dramani-Issifou – Boston & Cambridge
- Guillaume Giovanetti & Çağla Zencirci – Washington DC
- Philippe Lacôte – New York
- Mathilde Lavenne – Austin, Corsicana, Houston & Marfa
- Johanna Makabi – Dallas, Lafayette & New York
- Jamal Ouazzani – Los Angeles
- Lucas Roxo – Chicago
Gastronomy
- Corentin Poirier-Martinet – San Francisco
Literature
- Julia Bourdet – Chicago & San Francisco
- Diaty Diallo – Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Miami, New Orleans & New York
- Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet – New York
- Céline Minard – Los Angeles
- Karim Oyarzabal – Houston
- Anne Pauly – Appalachia
- Marine Schneider – Baton Rouge, Lafayette & New Orleans
Museums and Heritage
- Miren Arzalluz – New York
- Claire Houmard – Quinhagak Alaska
- Wambui Kamiru Collymore – Boston, Detroit & Washington DC
Music
- Selorm Attikpo – Atlanta
- Julian Babou & Sonny Troupé – Miami
- Jean-Philippe Billmann – Boston
- Christophe Chassol & Boris Memmi – Chicago
- Olukemi Lijadu – Chicago
- Anne Paceo – New Orleans
- Ngnima Sarr aka T.I.E. – Atlanta
Performing Arts
- Quentin Cabocel, Violaine Fimbel & Julie Le Corre – Los Angeles & New York
- Penda Diouf – New York
- Nach – Los Angeles & San Francisco
- Dalia Naous & Marik Renner – Miami
Social Sciences and Humanities
- Lydia Amarouche – Atlanta, Los Angeles & New York
- Eric Lenoir – Honolulu, Portland & San Francisco
Visual Arts
- Younes Baba-Ali – New York
- Louisa Babari – New York
- Oliver Beer – New York
- Lune Diagne – New York
- Assia Drame – Chicago
- Aboubakar Fofana – Atlanta, Charleston, New Orleans, New York, St. Augustine & Washington DC
- Geoffroy Mathieu – Atlanta
- Arash Nassiri – Los Angeles
- Marie Sommer – Washington DC
In partnership with
FACE Foundation
FACE Foundation is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting French-American relations through innovative cultural and educational projects. In partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, FACE Foundation promotes artistic, literary, and educational exchange and collaboration between creative professionals from both countries. With additional corporate, foundation, and individual support, FACE Foundation administers grant programs in the performing and visual arts, cinema, translation, and secondary and higher education, while providing financial sponsorship to French-American festivals and other cultural initiatives. FACE Foundation focuses on new and recent work of living artists and the promotion of bilingualism and the French language.
Bettencourt Schueller Foundation
Bettencourt Schueller Foundation strives to embody the will of a family, driven by the spirit of enterprise and awareness of its social role, to reveal talents and help them thrive, in three fields that contribute concretely to the common good: life sciences, the arts and solidarity. Both a family foundation and recognized as a public utility since its creation in 1987, the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation intends to give wings to talent to contribute to the success and influence of France.
Florence Gould Foundation
The Florence Gould Foundation is devoted to French-American exchange and friendship. It has provided critical and longstanding support to enable the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and its partner FACE Foundation to foster French-American exchange across disciplines and make the very best of French and francophone culture accessible to diverse communities across the United States. The Florence Gould Writers’ Residency at Villa Albertine will create exceptional and enduring opportunities for literary creation for the most promising and innovative French and Francophone authors.
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an independent organization working to address inequality and build a future grounded in justice. For more than 85 years, it has supported visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Today, with an endowment of $16 billion, the foundation has headquarters in New York and 10 regional offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Louis Roederer Foundation
The Louis Roederer Foundation, presided by Frédéric Rouzaud, supports contemporary artistic creation and the transmission of knowledge. Founded in 2011, the Foundation accompanies ambitious cultural initiatives led by renowned institutions both in France and abroad.
It provides steadfast support to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Jeu de Paume in Paris, the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, and the Villa Albertine in the United States. Through the Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles Photography Festival, the Revelation Prizes at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes and the Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville (Deauville American Film Festival), as well as its Carte Blanche collaboration with Le Fresnoy, the Louis Roederer Foundation actively fosters the emergence of talented artists. With the Photographic Research Grant from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, its support for international researchers at the Institute for Ideas & Imagination in Paris, and its global “Thinking Sustainability” program, the Foundation contributes to a better understanding of the world and enhanced mutual respect.
The Foundation also engages in the viticultural domains of the Roederer Collection by initiating cultural actions specific to each site. To perfect its commitment to the arts, the Louis Roederer Foundation is building its own collection of works by emerging and established artists, whether represented or not, and offers carte blanche collaborations in various artistic fields.
Diptyque
In the bohemian neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the artistic, intellectual and festive heart of 1960s Paris, a creative adventure was born from the meeting of three multidisciplinary artists united by their insatiable curiosity and shared sense of beauty.
Mixing reverie and reality, nature and art, Diptyque opens the doors to a timeless, fragrant, abundant world, where scents, dancing letters, illustrations and captivating patterns evoke places loved and moments shared. Where creations take shape as escapes where the imagination wanders.