Selection for 2024 Art Residencies in Switzerland, Russia and Online

We are happy to announce the participants of the art residencies 2024 in Switzerland, Russia and online.

This year, we received 114 applications from Russian art practitioners. Congratulations to the winners: artists Svetlana Spirina and Andrey Chugunov, curator and sound researcher Evgeny Bylina, and sound artist Nick Zavriev.

Our kudos also go out to Swiss musician and composer Eleni Ralli, who will be working in a Russian art residency next year.

Maria Sloeva, theatre curator and producer from Russia, writer Alexander Estis and artist Parvez Imam from Switzerland will create in the online residencies.

As a reminder, Pro Helvetia Moscow supports art residencies of Russian artists and art practitioners in Switzerland and their Swiss colleagues in Russia. Such residencies provide an opportunity for professional development, help working on current and new projects, and facilitate the establishment of professional relationships for future collaboration. In 2023, Swiss and Russian artists could apply for online residencies as an alternative option. The online residency also lasts for three months and helps the artist establish professional contacts and develop their artistic practice.

We will announce the date of the next Open-Call later.

Svetlana Spirina is an artist who works at the intersection of performance and spatial installation, often using video and photography as a means of documentation.
She has participated in exhibitions in Russia, Austria and the Czech Republic. Among the topics important to the artist are: fatigue, self-care, slowing down, questions of physical and digital presence. One of the important directions in her current activity is the work with delegated performance.
In Switzerland, Svetlana will be establishing collaboration with Swiss media-art and digital performance institutions and plans to continue her work on the project «Digital Empathy».

Photo © Nastya Mini

Andrey Chugunov is an artist who combines digital and analogue media, along with sound art, generative graphics, technological sculpture, performance and work with readymade. In his personal projects he addresses notions of mortality, temporality, autonomy and memory decay.
In Switzerland, he plans to work on a performative art&science project exploring the interaction between the artist and his autoimmune disease.

Photo © Anya Marchenkova

Evgeny Bylina is a cultural theorist, sound researcher, musician, co-curator of the Sound Art & Sound Studies master’s program at the Higher School of Economics, and the editor of the series «History of Sound» at the Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye Publishing House.
In his Swiss residency, Evgeny plans to research new techniques and contemporary practices of sound art, as well as work on a project dedicated to the interaction between sound culture and the politics of memory.

Photo © Alexandra Kuramina

Nick Zavriev is a musician, DJ, journalist, podcaster. Since 1998, he composes, publishes and performs music under the creative pseudonym Ambidextrous. He is known as a musician of the first wave of Russian IDM and ambient. In Switzerland musician plans to work on an electronic piece, combining live improvisation on acoustic instruments and electronic sampling technique. Also Nick will work on a book about the history of the IDM/experimental/glitch scene and input of Swiss musicians to development of this music culture.

Photo © Moscow Music School

Maria Sloeva is an independent theater producer and curator. In the online residency Maria will work on researching performances based on artists’ personal experiences and family histories. Maria plans to explore different artistic strategies and performance tools. The outcome of the residency will be a performative text based on her own story.

Eleni Ralli is a music researcher, composer and musician. She lives and works in Basel. In Russia, Eleni plans to study the soundscape and collect material for an audio-visual biographical composition based on the landscapes and impressions that the artist collects during her trip along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Photo (c) Angelos Tsompanidis

Aleksandr Estis is a writer, critic, linguist, his literary publications appear in the most important magazines of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, Member of the Swiss Writers’ Union, was repeatedly awarded with literary prizes. He writes in Russian and German.
In his online residency, Alexander plans to work on the project Wörterbuch des Widerstands, where he explores neologisms, terms, new vocabulary, and new dictionary that emerged after February 2022. Photo (c) Ralf Seidel

Imam Parvez is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist exploring the theme of human identity. He is engaged in performative practices, works with installation, video, images and texts.

In the online residency Imam will explore his long-time interest in Russian performative art, exchange experiences with Russian curators and performers and explore the possibility of his own social-specific project.

Photo: PARVEZ/RE:ACT/Disrupt The Performance #1/2019/Performance/Voltage, Basel. Courtesy, Voltage