Inner River: A Month-Long Art Residency for Creative Wayfinding 🌊🎨
Looking for creative souls to join our month-long art residency in the Life Itself conscious co-living Hub in Bergerac, France! (July 7th- August 3rd, 2025). Apply by May 15th.
In a world of socio-ecological crises, does art even matter? Should I be doing something “more useful” with my time? How would I know if my art is valuable?
With sincerity and playfulness alike, we’ll pack questions like these into our bags and meet in a small French town with red tile roofs and quiet sunsets. We’ll spend a month living, exploring, and creating together in a charming, multi-storey house on the banks of the Dordogne river.
Inner River is a month-long container of contemplation, community, and creativity for 10-12 artists to dive into an individual and shared journey of discovering and creating “our voice(s)”. An exploration of ancestry – where we come from through to what kinds of ancestors we want to become – will form the ground of this inquiry.
Will you join us?
Key Information
What: Month-long residency combining creative practices, contemplative practices, and conscious community living practices
Where: Life Itself Hub in Bergerac, south-west France (~1.5h from Bordeaux)
When: July 7th - August 3rd, 2025 (with an optional week of winding down until August 10th)
Who: Artists of any medium and experience level, who are curious to craft and encounter their creative selves. If you’re not sure whether you identify as an “artist” but feel connected with your creative spark, you’re welcome too.
Cost: €400-750 for room + €350 for food & consumables + €400-800 sliding scale contribution towards organising, hosting, and facilitation. (Additional cost of optional wind-down week not included.)
Application process: 1) Application form 2) Call with a member of the Hosting Team. Please apply by May 15th. N.B. We are reviewing applications on a rolling basis, so please apply as soon as you can.
More about the residency
What are we exploring?
The invitation is to be in a month-long conversation with ourselves, each other, and the wider world. To step out of our day-to-day routines – and try on new and mystical storytelling of our lives as artists and citizens.
Our inquiry into our creative selves will take place in the realms of a thematic exploration of ancestry…
Where do we come from, and what shaped us into who we are? What are the gifts and debts of our inheritance? Who are our ancestors, and what kinds of ancestors do we want to become?
We hope this time can be a gift to ourselves where we invite each other to…
Step out of our usual routines and see ourselves reflected through the fresh mirrors of a new place and community
Follow the breadcrumbs of our creative histories, wishes, and joys, to see how we’ve become who we are today
Think of ourselves and our art as ingredients which shape our world, however big or small our scope
Water each other’s creative growth by generously sharing genuine curiosity and honest reflection
Reimagine artists not just as decorators and entertainers, but as essential researchers and guides asking how we want to steer the world
Week-by-week flow
We’ll spend the first 3 weeks in open exploration and inquiry into our stories of ourselves and of our world. Each week will include a lightly guided structure with a shared prompt and creative activities in the evening, with lots of room for all residents to co-create the container with our own offerings, as we feel called.
Week 1, Origin — We’ll start by taking a look at where we come from, and what has shaped us into who we are, as artists and people. Who are our ancestors? What are the gifts and debts of our inheritance?
Week 2, Journey — From there, we’ll look to the current moment in our story. Who’s here today? Who have we become, and who are we becoming? Where do we belong, and what are we guided by?
Week 3, Prophecy — Lastly, we’ll turn our gaze to the future. What is the story we’re writing? What is our gift to the world? What kinds of ancestors do we want to become?
Week 4, Offering — And in the last week, we will switch gears to a focused week of making!
Daily flow
Practically, we start and end each day with communal practices, with ample time for open exploration in between. A sample day may look like:
7:30-8:30am Morning practice
8:30-9am Breakfast
9-10am Collective care (cooking, cleaning, gardening, etc.)
Open studio time
1-2pm Informal/self-service lunch
Open time
6:30-7:30pm Family dinner
8-9:30pm Gather for creative activities (organized activities 2-3 evenings each week, and open time on other days)
On Sundays, we’ll organize excursions to the Mindfulness day at Plum Village, late Thich Nhat Hanh’s beautiful Zen Buddhist monastery nearby.
Practices
In our time together, we’ll engage in a range of creative, conscious co-living, and contemplative practices. Some of these will be offered by the hosting team, and some will be initiated by residents.
Some examples are:
Creative practices: creative jams, reflections, and games; storytelling; resonance singing; 5Rhythms dance…
Conscious Co-living practices: cleaning and cooking together; collective decision-making; sharing circles; community meetings; connection and nervous system regulation activities…
Contemplative practices: meditation; qigong; yoga; Work That Reconnects (Joanna Macy); silent time…
A core part of the residency will also be plenty of time for working on our art and simply enjoying time alone or together.
About the Life Itself Bergerac Hub
The Life Itself Bergerac Praxis Hub is a conscious co-living space for people to gather and experiment with the embodied presence and practical action needed to respond wisely and cultivate radical social change in a time of metacrisis.
Life Itself is a collective of people and projects dedicated to rigorous inquiry and action for an awakening society and a radically wiser, weller world.
About Bergerac
Bergerac is a small town in Southwest France, known for its old town’s half-timbered buildings and the castles that dot the surrounding countryside. It has beautiful architecture, and great wine from nearby vineyards. Bergerac old town centre is 10 minutes’ walk from the Hub. The Dordogne River runs a few steps in front of the hub, and July is a lovely time to go for a swim or for long riverside walks. There is a train station 20 minutes’ walk from the Hub with regular trains to Bordeaux (from which run regular trains to Paris), a twice-weekly farmers’ market, and a dozen boulangeries.
Bergerac has most things we need, including an art supply store and a Recyclerie (second hand shop). It’s a beautifully peaceful place that leaves plenty of room for us to listen to ourselves and the world around. Though small, Bergerac can also be lively – there are bars, restaurants, and cafés in town, as well as concerts, open mic nights and dance nights. Bastille Day celebrations will also be taking place the week of 14th July.
