open call: connect

Arts at CERN and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia welcome proposals for a new residency opportunity of the Connect collaboration framework, which promotes the dialogue between artists and scientists within the Laboratory’s context.

The Connect residency calls for artists and collectives from or based in Switzerland with distinct interest in an interdisciplinary approach and strong motivation for learning more about the modes of scientific thinking and fundamental science. Connect invites proposals from artists working across visual arts, music, literature, performing arts, design, and interactive media.

The selected artist or collective will undertake a two-month residency on-site at CERN to conduct artistic research based on their proposal in dialogue with the scientific community and spend one month remotely to further develop their project with the support of a scientific partner and the curation and mentoring of the Arts at CERN curator and team.

The Connect residency includes all living, travel and accommodation expenses within a fixed budget for the residency period at CERN and a production stipend of CHF 15,000 to support the creation of new artwork. In the case of an artist collective, all these costs will be split between the members. Additionally, parents can apply for financial support of CHF 1,000 per month to co-finance childcare.

To apply for the Connect residency, artists should submit a proposal that combines research and production. The scope of this proposal should include a project description that describes an artistic research period of two months at CERN, engaging in close dialogue with scientists, engineers and staff at CERN, and a development phase in the form of a remote residency to define a new artwork. The application also requires describing the artist's motivation for applying and their interest in the CERN community and research in relation to their practice.