Art Gallery & Creative Hub

Artist Residency Opportunity 2026–27

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Place as Practice: Artist in Residence Brief

CLOSING DATE: Midday on Friday 11th September

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Making work. Experiencing place. Helping us imagine what an artist residency could become.

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SPUD is inviting expressions of interest from artists for two unusual residency opportunities at spudWORKS in the New Forest National Park.

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We are looking for artists who want time and space to develop their own practice and create ambitious new work, continue to add to the rich archive of research already undertaken, but who are also interested in a wider question:

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What should an artist residency in the New Forest be?

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SPUD is currently developing spudRETREAT — an ambitious long-term vision for a permanent home for artists, creativity and communities in the New Forest National Park. Before we build the model, we want artists to help us shape it. These two residencies will therefore be both creative commissions and live research. The selected artists will spend a month immersed in the New Forest, developing their own work while also reflecting on their experience of residency: what enables artists to think, experiment and connect with place; what gets in the way; how artists and communities can meaningfully encounter one another; and what a future residency programme here could become.

 

We don't expect you to arrive with the answers.  We want you to help us ask better questions.

 

The Residencies

We will appoint two artists:

 

Residency One: 4 weeks between October 2026 and end of January 2027 (to be negotiated)
One-month residency at spudWORKS
Exhibition: May 2027

 

Residency Two: May 2027
One-month residency at spudWORKS 
Exhibition: October 2027 

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Each artist will have a concentrated period in the New Forest followed by time away to reflect, develop and produce work before returning to spudWORKS for an exhibition. The gap between residency and exhibition is intentional. We want the experience of place to have time to develop rather than expecting an immediate artistic response.

 

The Creative Brief

We are deliberately keeping the artistic brief open. We are interested in artists whose practice engages in some way with place, landscape, people, ecology, environment, architecture, rural life or community. You might be a visual artist, maker, photographer, filmmaker, architect, designer, sound artist, writer, interdisciplinary practitioner — or work in a way that doesn't fit neatly into any of these categories.   We are particularly interested in proposals that could only really happen here.       

 

The New Forest is an extraordinary landscape, but it is not simply a picturesque backdrop. It is a living, working and contested place shaped by ecology, commoning, tourism, housing, conservation, communities, climate, heritage and change. We want artists who are curious about that complexity. Artists who want to explore how the New Forest can become more resilient and question the action required. Your residency might involve walking, making, conversations, observation, research, collaboration, collecting, listening, mapping, writing, testing ideas or simply spending sustained time within the landscape. The outcome does not need to be predetermined. But we would like the residency to lead ultimately towards a significant exhibition or presentation at spudWORKS.

 

The Second Brief: Help Us Design the Future

Alongside your own artistic practice, we want you to become a temporary critical friend to SPUD.  We are exploring the creation of spudRETREAT: a permanent residential centre where multiple artists could live, work and collaborate within the New Forest.

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Our ambition is bigger than simply providing artists with accommodation.

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We are interested in whether a residency could become: 

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• a place for artistic experimentation and research;

• a meeting point between artists and communities;

• a rural cultural laboratory;

• a space for interdisciplinary collaboration;

• a gateway between creativity, ecology and landscape;

• and a nationally significant model for artists working within protected landscapes.​

 

As someone actually undertaking a residency here, your experience matters. During the month we will create opportunities for you to talk with the SPUD team, other artists, communities and partners about questions such as: 

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• What does an artist really need from a residency?

• What happens when you give an artist meaningful time in a place?

• How should artists encounter local communities — and how should communities encounter artists?

• How much structure should a residency provide, and how much should it leave alone?

• What does communal residency offer that working alone does not?

• How can a residency be genuinely inclusive and accessible?

• What relationship should a residency have with landscape, ecology and environmental organisations?

• What would make artists travel nationally or internationally to undertake a residency in the New Forest?

• And, if we had the opportunity to create something from scratch, what should we create?

 

As a critical friend we are not asking you to write a consultancy report. We are asking you to experience, question, challenge and imagine alongside us.

Your reflections will become part of the thinking that shapes the future spudRETREAT programme.

 

Artists, Communities and Place

SPUD believes artists can play an important role in helping communities understand and respond to social and environmental change.

We are particularly interested in how residency programmes can create genuine exchange rather than simply bringing artists into a landscape to make work.

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SPUD already works with young people, people living with dementia and their carers, LGBTQIA+ communities, schools, environmental organisations, artists and communities across the New Forest. We would therefore expect each resident artist to engage with people beyond the walls of spudWORKS.

 

That could be through:

• conversations;

• walks;

• workshops;

• shared meals;

• research;

• open studios;

• community collaborations;

• or something completely different proposed by you.

 

We are not looking for predetermined "community engagement activity". We want to explore what meaningful exchangebetween an artist, a place and its communities might actually look like.

 

What We Are Looking For

We are interested in artists who:

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• have a strong and distinctive creative practice;

• are curious about place and the New Forest;

• will embrace a period of research and experimentation;

• are comfortable with some uncertainty;

• enjoy exchanging ideas with other people;

• are interested in socially or environmentally engaged practice;

• can critically reflect on their own experience;

• and are excited by the opportunity to help shape something that does not yet exist.

 

You do not need previous residency experience. Indeed, we are interested in hearing from artists with different experiences of residencies — including those who have never had access to one before.

 

What SPUD Will Provide

The selected artists will receive:

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• A one-month residency at spudWORKS

• Artist fee: £3000

• Accommodation: 1 month provided free of charge at SPUDWORKS

• Travel: £100

• Materials/production budget: £400

• Exhibition at spudWORKS: May 2027 (Residency 1) or October 2027 (Residency 2)

• Curatorial and technical support from the SPUD team.

• Introductions and connections to communities, organisations, specialists and landscapes across the New Forest relevant to the artist's research.

• Artists will also have access to the wider creative community based at spudWORKS.

 

How to Respond - We don't want a lengthy application. CLOSING DATE: Midday on Friday 11th September

 

Please us thew online form below to:

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1. Tell us about your practice. What interests you and how do you work?

2. What would you like to explore in the New Forest? We are interested in your starting point rather than a fully resolved project.

3. Respond to this question: If you could design an artist residency from scratch, what would you want it to make possible?

4. Tell us how you might engage with people or communities during your residency.

5. Tell us which residency you are applying for: October 2026 / May 2027 / Either.

 

Please also provide up to six examples of previous work and a short CV or biography.

 

Selection

Artists will be selected by a small panel based on:

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Quality of artistic practice
Response to place
Curiosity and willingness to experiment
Approach to community and exchange
Response to the spudRETREAT question

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We are not necessarily looking for the artist with the most developed proposal, but with a clear intent.  We are looking for artists with whom we believe we can undertake an interesting journey.

 

Something We Don't Yet Know…

 

spudRETREAT is still an idea.

We don't yet know exactly what it should look like, how artists should inhabit it, how long residencies should last, how communal it should be, or what relationship it should have with the communities and landscape around it. We think that is exciting.

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Rather than designing the programme entirely from our office, we want artists to help us develop it through practice.  These first two residencies will therefore become part of the story of spudRETREAT.