FUTURES Artistic Residency
A residency programme supporting artistic development through research, experimentation, and public engagement.
#futures residency
Each artist in residence keeps a visual diary showcasing moments from their stay in Amsterdam, Riga or Budapest, bits of their creative process and insights into the development of their research.
how it works
The FUTURES Artistic Residency Programme creates the conditions for artists to deepen their practice through artistic research, experimentation, dialogue, and engagement with contemporary themes. Developed by FUTURES and delivered in collaboration with partner organisations across Europe, the programme provides artists with dedicated time, guidance, and support to advance their practice within a structured residency framework.
Each residency takes place within a distinct cultural context, creating opportunities to engage with new environments, communities, and perspectives. Through artistic research, dialogue, and public engagement, residents are encouraged to deepen their inquiry, expand their practice, and explore new approaches to image-making and artistic practice.
While each residency is rooted in a different local context, all are delivered through a shared FUTURES framework that supports artistic research, professional exchange, and public engagement across a connected European network of partner organisations.
resEARCH FRAMEWORK
Artists are encouraged to engage critically with questions of ecological relationships, technological transformation, environmental responsibility, and the ways these forces shape contemporary life. The residency provides a framework for investigating, reflecting on, and expanding these ideas through artistic research and experimentation.
The residency places particular emphasis on process and development, supporting artists as they research, test new approaches, and advance their projects throughout the residency. Public engagement forms an integral part of the programme, with each residency culminating in a public-facing event that creates opportunities for dialogue and exchange with diverse audiences.
Artists are selected through an annual open call available to FUTURES artists. Applications are reviewed by an international jury and assessed based on the quality of the artist's practice, the strength of the proposed residency project, and its relevance to the current research framework.
The residency programme takes place across multiple locations in collaboration with FUTURES partner organisations. Together, the residency locations form a connected European programme, enabling artistic research and exchange to develop across different cultural contexts while remaining grounded in a shared FUTURES framework.
Alongside independent artistic development, the programme includes guidance, public engagement, and opportunities for exchange with local communities, cultural organisations, and professional networks.
- Expert Guidance: Residents have opportunities to engage with professionals whose expertise is relevant to their project, offering guidance, feedback, and perspective throughout the residency.
- Public Engagement: Each residency concludes with a public-facing event, creating opportunities to share work and engage with local audiences.
- International Visibility: Artists and their projects are promoted through FUTURES communication channels, extending the visibility of the residency internationally.
- Contextual Grounding: Residents gain access to local artistic communities, cultural organisations, and professional networks through FUTURES and its partner organisations.
Artistic research is at the heart of the FUTURES Artistic Residency Programme. Throughout the residency, artists are invited to document and share the development of their research and creative process through a series of formats that foster dialogue, reflection, and exchange with local and international audiences.
- Visual Diary: Residents maintain a visual diary that documents the evolution of their research, experimentation, and creative process throughout the residency.
- Video Portrait: A short video portrait produced by FUTURES offers insight into the artist’s practice, research, and evolving project, providing audiences with a closer understanding of their artistic process.
- Public-Facing Event: Each resident participates in a public-facing event, such as an exhibition, workshop, open studio, screening, or artist talk, developed in collaboration with the host organisation. The event provides an opportunity to share and discuss artistic research in progress within the context of the residency.
- Written Interview: Residents take part in a reflective interview exploring their artistic research, creative process, and residency experience. Published on the FUTURES website, these interviews contribute to an evolving archive of artistic research across the residency programme.
residency locations
The FUTURES Artistic Residency Programme currently takes place across three locations.
Located at the FUTURES Hub in Amsterdam, the residency offers a private live-work environment that combines accommodation, workspace, and access to public facilities. Situated within the FUTURES headquarters, the Hub provides residents with a base from which to engage with Amsterdam's photography and contemporary art scene while developing their work within an international network.
ISSP, Riga: The resident will be housed at the ISSP Riga Residency apartment in the city centre, shared with other two artists. The accommodation offers comfortable conditions for living and working - a separate bedroom with a working space, spacious shared living room and a fully equipped kitchen. The resident will have access to ISSP office facilities including use of printer, scanner, ISSP photography library and studio lights.
Capa Center, Budapest: The Capa Center residency program offers all entering participants a fully furnished private room within a communal apartment located on the Art Quarter Budapest premises, a studio space catering to the project’s requirements within its 400 m2 shared studio in the coolest postindustrial area of Budapest. Capa Center provides varied services to integrate the residents into the local art scene and contribute in establishing professional connections that best support their work and career. In addition, the residency will offer the possibility to organise a presentation at the Capa Centre in downtown Budapest, and use the Capa Centre's office facilities, including the printer and scanner.
Residency Archive
from the
residency
Michaela Nagyidaiová (b. 1996) is a Slovakian photographer based in Bratislava. Her work analyses connections between landscape, memory, identity, migration, and the topographies of Central and Eastern Europe. Interested in how ideologies and political systems influence layers of personal life – and drawing inspiration from both past events and contemporary issues – Nagyidaiová works on long-term projects that combine images with text, archival material and video. She holds an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication, and is a member of Women Photograph. Her Transient Ties project was exhibited at Fotograf Festival in Prague’s National Gallery, and at a series of further shows in Czechia, Slovenia and Austria. In 2021, Nagyidaiová participated in the Wolf Suschitzky Photography Prize exhibition at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London & Fotohof in Salzburg, as well as in the British Journal of Photography’s Open Walls ’21: Then and Now exhibition at Galerie Huit in Arles.
Eleni Onasoglou was born in Syros Island (Greece), where she lived during her early years. In 2008 she graduated with a scholarship from ESP school of photography.
Today she lives and works as a photographer in Athens. Her work has been published in magazines from Greece and abroad, and presented in photography group exhibitions.
Ignacio Navas (b. 1989 Tudela, lives and works in Madrid) creates computational, generative and interactive projects based on photographic image to research how dominant structures—political, economic, or social—are made present and shape our everyday affairs. With this approach, Ignacio explores the possibilities that emerging technologies, computing, and new media offer to the photographic medium.
His recent work has received support from several grants and institutions, including the Visual Arts Creation Fellowship (Community of Madrid, 2024) and the Plastic and Visual Arts Fellowship (Government of Navarra, 2024). His images and interactive installations have also been part of initiatives such as Plat(t)form at Fotomuseum Winterthur (Switzerland, 2024), the Photoworks Digital Programme (UK, 2023), the Return2Ithaca Residency (Greece, 2023), and the FUTURES European Photography Platform (Netherlands, 2022).
Ignacio believes that contemporary creation cannot be understood without actively engaging in its own management. This conviction drives him to lead collective initiatives such as La Embajada (2024–), a platform to showcase projects created within the Spanish territorial context in the unofficial circuit of the Rencontres d’Arles festival, or El Local (2023–), an independent space for contemporary photography in Madrid.
Michal Sita (1985) is a photographer and curator. Graduate of photography at the ITF in Opava and anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he is concluding doctoral research on social uses of the past in contemporary Poland. Interested in social memory and research strategies of photography. Curator of an interdisciplinary analysis of Wiesław Rakowski’s interwar zoological photographs, curator and producer of a series of exhibitions (including Małgorzata Lebda and Rafał Siderski, Mayumi Suzuki, Jan Kurek, Martin Parr and Rimaldas Vikšraitis, Sputnik Photos, among others), and photobook festivals. Co-author of “Củ Chi Tunnels Restoration Report” (Photographic Publication of the Year 2020 – Łódź, PL), a book relating to the activities of the Polish-Vietnamese architectural heritage conservation mission. Author of “History of Poland” vol. 1 and 2 — publications commenting on anthropological research carried out in Murowana Goślina among volunteers staging a large-scale historical pageant. Author of critical texts on photography. Lecturer at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań.
Olena Morozova is a visual artist from Kyiv, Ukraine. She is interested in themes of spirituality, sexuality, gender identity, stereotypes, psychological and mental disorder, family relationships. "Photography is my passion, lifestyle, philosophy, way of thinking, seeing, understanding the world around me and my inner world, searching for my reflections, feelings and emotions, self-development and movement forward” - she explains. Olena has been engaged in photography since 2015. Her teachers were: Alexander Yakimchuk, Dimitri Bogachuk, Vladimir Seleznev, Viktoria Sorochinski, Sergey Melnichenko and others. Her works were presented in Finnish Museum of Photography (2022), Odesa Photo Days (2021), Photo Kiev Fair (2019, 2020).
UNSTATED is a Zürich–based practice that merges the physical and digital worlds through innovative strategy and design.
We are committed to creating work that adapts to our changing environment.
Yu Shuk Pui Bobby (b. 1994) is a visual artist based between Hong Kong and Oslo. With a collaborative approach to her practice, her work conjures the physical, tangible and affective phenomena associated with biotechnology through combinations of video, text, installation, sculpture, and performance. She often uses speculative fiction to tackle questions of human genetic engineering, reconfiguring perceptions of gender, body and historical discourses of identity. Bobby holds a BA from Hong Kong Baptist University and an MFA from Oslo National Academy of Fine Art. Her works have been in Hong Kong, Norway, Japan, China, Iceland and the USA.
Laure Winants is a researcher and field-based visual artist (BE, FR). Winants set up her artist’s studio in the heart of the Arctic ice pack. Embarked on a four-month polar expedition, she joined a team of multidisciplinary researchers to understand the evolution of this vast territory, where man is only a tiny part of life. Immersed in this white desert, she uses techniques developed specifically to capture the optical and luminous phenomena unique to the region. Using environmental sensors, the interaction of matter itself has become the creator of the work, putting human intervention to one side. Laure Winants makes this data tangible and emotionally perceptible, highlighting the interdependence of ecosystems and creating encounters in more-than-human temporalities. In this way, the artist creates a dialogue between art, the natural sciences, and technology.
Laure has exhibited her work internationally in Berlin (DE), Reykjavik (IS), Brussels (BE), Paris (FR), and soon in Stockholm (SE), Luxembourg (LU), and Osaka (JP). Her work has entered the collection of several foundations, such as the Fondation des Arts du Luxembourg and the Palais de Liège (BE).
Julius Thissen (1993, the Netherlands) lives and works in Arnhem, NL. Their work investigates themes of community and representation, masculinity, sports, and competition. Originating from their background as a performance artist, Thissen's photographic practice aims to create narratives that explore the fine line between performing and failing. These themes are closely tied to contemporary performance-driven culture and the influence of societal expectations on behavior. Their work is deeply rooted in personal experiences as a genderqueer and transmasculine individual. Thissen strongly opposes the restrictive and often binary narratives imposed on transgender and queer individuals.
Thissen has been nominated for the Hendrik Valk Prize, Arnhemse Nieuwe, and the Warsteiner Blooom Awards. In 2023, they received the Artist Basis Fund and, more recently, a Mondriaan Fund Artist Project Grant for their new project Bones of Graphene, Skin of Kevlar.
Tim Rod is a Swiss artist based in Bern, Switzerland. He studied art education at HKB – Bern University of Applied Sciences (BA, 2018), art history at Bern University (Minor, 2019), photography at Vevey School of Photography (CEPV, ES diploma, 2021) and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Contemporary Arts Practice at HKB – Bern University of Applied Sciences. His work often explores issues related to exile and habitat, rootlessness and rootedness, as well as memory, identity, belonging and travelling. His own roots and family history are one of the central elements of his practice and his research, alongside collective visual culture. While his practice remains strongly rooted in photography, his works often expand into site-specific multimedia installations. His work has been exhibited since 2018 in Switzerland and internationally since 2021. Recent exhibitions include "L’Été sans fin" (Festival Images, Vevey, 2020), "Genesis" (Hackney Downs Studios, London, 2021), Charta Bookfestival (Rome, 2021), Photobook Award Encontros Da Imagem (Braga, Portugal, 2021), and the European Photobook Month (Hongkong, 2022). He has been nominated or shortlisted to several major Swiss and international awards. His project "Don’t forget the Knifish" was awarded the special mention of the near.prize 2021. The same year, he won the vfg Young Talent Award for Photography with the project "À demain inshallah".
Thana Faroq is a Yemeni photographer and educator based in the Netherlands. She works with photography, texts, sound, and the physicality of the image itself, as a way to respond to the changes that have been shaping and defining her life, and sense of belonging both in Yemen and the Netherlands. Thana's positioning as a photographer is informed by her reflections on her subject matter, tuning in to other people’s lived experiences with which she continually grows familiar. She also increasingly seeks her own story in the frame. Thana was a recipient of the 2018 inaugural Open Society Foundation Fellowship Grant and Exhibition and the 2019 Arab Documentary Fund supported by the Prince Claus Fund and Magnum Foundation and Zenith magazine reporting grant. In 2020, she published her first book, I don't Recognize Me in the Shadows The book was shortlisted for the Lucie Photobook Prize 2021, and it has also been listed as one of the Interesting Artist & Photographic Books for 2021 by the PhotoBook Journal. Thana received her BA in Government and International Relations from Clark University, and an MA in Photography and Society at The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
Yu Shuk Pui Bobby (b. 1994) is a visual artist based between Hong Kong and Oslo. With a collaborative approach to her practice, her work conjures the physical, tangible and affective phenomena associated with biotechnology through combinations of video, text, installation, sculpture, and performance. She often uses speculative fiction to tackle questions of human genetic engineering, reconfiguring perceptions of gender, body and historical discourses of identity. Bobby holds a BA from Hong Kong Baptist University and an MFA from Oslo National Academy of Fine Art. Her works have been in Hong Kong, Norway, Japan, China, Iceland and the USA.
Valeria Cherchi (b.1986) is an Italian photographer. She was born and raised in Sardinia, Italy. Her practice focuses on projects regarding social and cultural issues. Her research is driven by the need of exploring topics such as time, memories and history connected to her personal experience. She is interested in true and tangible character-driven stories, often told by combining photography and text. In 2018, Valeria was one the named in ‘British Journal of Photography’s Ones to Watch.
Mirielle Rohr (b. Berlin) is a visual artist and photographer based between Paris and Berlin. She graduated from ECAL’s Master in Photography (Lausanne) in 2025. Through analogue photography, ceramics, sculpture, and AI-generated imagery, she examines the aesthetics and emotional economies of digital culture, how bodies, desire, and identity are mediated, performed, and consumed. Her works often combines tactile processes with synthetic image-making to produce psychologically charged narratives.
Her work has been published in the British Journal of Photography, Der Greif, Schema Magazine, SLEEK, and Fisheye Magazine, among many more. She was a finalist for the Picto Fashion Photography Award (2024) and presented her work at Paris Photo (Carte Blanche Étudiante, 2025) last year. In March 2026 she will exhibit at PhotoVogue Festival, is shortlisted for Un/Fund & Residency.