From Study in Rome to Digital Networks: The Global Development of Artist Residencies

Zhang Guozhong and Hu Chao

2026

It is difficult to determine precisely when and how this system formally emerged. Throughout history, artists, especially visual artists, have been drawn to landscapes and towns, and living away from home has long been a familiar experience. In its modern sense, an artist residency is usually a programme specifically designed to provide creative practitioners with a sustained period of time, a workspace and living arrangements, while enabling them to engage with new local environments, systems of knowledge and social relationships. Today, residencies are found in art museums, universities, foundations, independent arts organisations and communities. Their functions have expanded from supporting individual artistic practice to encompass research, education, public engagement and cross-cultural collaboration.

Accounts of the institutional origins of artist residencies often begin with the system of artistic study in Rome established by France in the seventeenth century. It offers an early example that has endured to the present day. In 1666, King Louis XIV founded the French Academy in Rome (Académie de France à Rome),[10] enabling young French artists to live in Rome and study classical art and works of the Renaissance. Those who went to Rome were winners of the Prix de Rome, a prize established in 1663 under the direction of the finance minister Colbert to select outstanding young French artists. The French Academy in Rome thus became a precursor of artist residency programmes, providing institutional support for artists to undertake intensive study away from home. After several relocations, the Academy moved in 1803 to the Villa Medici, formerly owned by Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici (1549–1609), which became its permanent home.

From the 1960s onwards, the French Academy in Rome underwent a series of reforms, becoming a place of residence primarily for visual artists, musicians, writers and scholars from French-speaking regions around the world.[11]

In the early twentieth century, another model of residency gradually emerged: artists temporarily withdrew from everyday responsibilities to concentrate on their work in a relatively quiet setting. MacDowell and Yaddo in the United States were early examples of this model. In 1907, the American composer Edward MacDowell and the pianist Marian MacDowell jointly founded the MacDowell Colony on their farm in New Hampshire. It began welcoming creative practitioners from different disciplines, encouraging exchange across art forms.[12] Yaddo (Corporation of Yaddo) was established in 1900 in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its founders sought to offer artists a quiet retreat as a counterweight to the increasingly evident social problems of the period. Yaddo welcomed its first residents in 1926, and nearly 7,000 artists have since spent time there.[13]

No history of artist residencies can overlook the Cité internationale des arts in Paris, which describes itself on its website as the world’s largest artist residency. First conceived in 1937 and officially opened in 1965, it provides artists with accommodation and workspaces at several locations in Paris.[14] In 1984, at Wu Zuoren’s suggestion, Lü Xiaguang financed the purchase of the “Studio of Mr and Mrs Lü Xiaguang” at the Cité and donated it to the China Artists Association, enabling Chinese artists to undertake further study in Paris. Several art academies in China subsequently purchased studios at the Cité, providing an important route through which contemporary Chinese artists could undertake regular residencies abroad.[15] Given the particular composition of the resident groups at these studios established by Chinese institutions, this project has not included them in its research scope at this stage.

Taken together, residency programmes of this kind, from the seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth century, brought together individual studios, communal living and uninterrupted time for creative work, laying important foundations for modern artist residencies. Yaddo’s original aim—to provide artists with uninterrupted time and space for creative work—remains central to many residency programmes today.

Since the second half of the twentieth century, the continued growth of international travel, cultural funding and networks of arts institutions has further diversified the functions of residencies. Artists undertake field research away from home and build connections with local creative practitioners, craftspeople and communities. Residencies have thus become platforms where artistic production, knowledge exchange and professional mobility intersect. In the twenty-first century, some programmes have increasingly addressed ecological concerns, regional experience, social engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration. Research in this field treats residencies as an important form of infrastructure supporting artistic experimentation, critical thinking, cross-cultural collaboration and locally grounded research, while also drawing attention to the funding, geopolitical and environmental conditions that shape artistic mobility.[16]

Since the 1990s, China’s connections with international residency networks have gradually deepened. Organisations such as Asialink have enabled Australian artists to live and work in China for extended periods. Institutions and programmes such as the Chinese European Art Center (CEAC) in Xiamen and Red Gate Residency subsequently established ongoing arrangements for hosting artists and facilitating exchange. Founded in 2013, China Residencies has made information about residencies in China more visible through its database, maps and annual reports.[17] These initiatives have made residencies a form of infrastructure for exchange across regions in Chinese contemporary art. They have also provided concrete ways for artists to understand unfamiliar social experiences, material traditions and artistic networks.

Digital technologies have further expanded the spatial forms of residencies. When international travel has been restricted, online residencies have sustained artistic exchange through video conferences, shared archives, remote studio visits and online exhibitions. They have reduced some travel and venue costs and opened up opportunities for artists in different regions or with limited mobility. At the same time, time-zone differences, constraints on equipment and internet access, and a diminished sense of physical presence have prompted renewed reflection on what it means to “live together” and “engage with a place” during a residency. Hybrid models combining online exchange with in-person encounters have become an extension of residency practice.[18]

From academy-based study several centuries ago to the diverse programmes now situated in cities, rural areas, factories, universities and digital spaces, artist residencies have consistently revolved around time, space and movement. Their history also suggests that the value of a residency lies both in the works completed during it and in the knowledge, relationships and long-term collaborations that emerge from shared experience.

10. This essay uses the Chinese name “罗马法国学院” for the Académie de France à Rome (French Academy in Rome). Founded in 1666 as the Roman branch of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, it is now under the French Ministry of Culture. The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture was one of the predecessors of the Académie des beaux-arts (French Academy of Fine Arts), established in 1816. The latter is now one of the five academies that make up the Institut de France (Institute of France). Over their long histories, these institutions have undergone several reorganisations and reforms, and the lines of institutional succession between them have not been entirely continuous. See The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The French Academy in Rome” (https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-french-academy-in-rome); French Academy in Rome, “The Villa Medici” (https://villamedici.it/en/the-villa-medici/); Académie des beaux-arts, “Histoire” (https://www.academiedesbeauxarts.fr/histoire); Institut de France, “Notre organisation” (https://www.institutdefrance.fr/notre-organisation/).

11. French Academy in Rome, “The Villa Medici” (https://villamedici.it/en/the-villa-medici/); “The story” (https://villamedici.it/en/the-story/). Last checked on 2 October 2026.

12. Library of Congress, “The MacDowell Colony: A Sanctuary for the Arts—Overview” (https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/macdowell/overview.html). Last checked on 2 October 2026.

13. Yaddo, “Who We Are” (https://yaddo.org/who-we-are/). Last checked on 2 October 2026.

14. Cité internationale des arts, “About us” (https://www.citeinternationaledesarts.fr/en/about-us/). Last checked on 2 October 2026.

15. https://news.artron.net/20140919/n655280.html. Last checked on 2 October 2026. See also the China Artists Association: “Lü Xiaguang’s Studio at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris” (in Chinese) (https://caanet.org.cn/newsdetail.mx?id=1793); “Remembering Our Roots and Carrying the Legacy Forward” (in Chinese) (https://caanet.org.cn/newsdetail.mx?id=1790).

16. DutchCulture | TransArtists, “Artist-in-Residence History” (https://www.transartists.org/en/artist-residence-history).

17. Asialink, “Creative Exchanges & Residencies” (https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/arts/program/creative-exchanges-residencies/); China Residencies, “About” (https://www.chinaresidencies.com/about); interviews on Red Gate Residency (https://www.chinaresidencies.com/news/15) and the Chinese European Art Center (https://www.chinaresidencies.com/news/67?lang=en).

18. Valentina Riccardi, “Virtual residencies: a new model of exchange beyond the pandemic” (https://culture360.asef.org/insights/virtual-residencies-new-model-exchange-beyond-pandemic/), ASEF culture360, 17 September 2021.

AI used for translation.
