What is a PMP artist residency and Toolkit?
As part of the overall structure of the Professional Media Presence project, each of the PMP partners organize a series of activities that are either online and open to all globally (PMP Online Seminars) or in-person for the PMP National Artist Team members (Workshop Weeks, each for 26 of the NAT artists, and a 2-month artist residency for two participants from each Workshop Week). This past fall 2023, PMP project coordinator and partner, Turku University of Applied Sciences organized all three of these events.
Artist residency
The 2-month artist residency brings distant NAT artists to the PMP host partner so they are able to be immersed in the cultural context of their host country, which may be so very different from their own previous personal and professional experiences. The PMP host provides accommodations and if possible, workspaces that the host has within their infrastructure. This physical infrastructure (spaces available where to work) may determine if the NAT artists wish to apply for such residencies.
Toolkit
The two PMP artists focus on their creative work as well as develop narrative written materials for a chapter in the “Professional Media Presence for Artists” Toolkit. During each of the five residency periods (fall 2023: Turku, Finland, spring 2024: Venice, Italy, fall 2024: Tornio, Finland, spring 2025: Barcelona, Spain, fall 2025: Split, Croatia), each chapter of this “Professional Media Presence for Artists Toolkit” illuminates one of the five themes that are at the core of the PMP Project. They are:
- Media and art
- Online media and digital storytelling
- Social media and media readership
- Media of the future
- Media and professional identity.
The two NAT residency artists further develop the ideas that have been explored during the previous PMP Workshop Week for this “Professional Media Presence for Artists Toolkit” chapter as well as develop their own artistic creative project/s. Regarding the NAT artists’ own creative work: this is for their own focus and may be used for the PMP Hybrid Exhibition scheduled for spring of 2026. The time during this 2-month residency can be for the NAT artists to think about and reflect upon their own artistic process, time to investigate the PMP host’s local/regional/national identity, and any other manner they wish to spend their time. There is no required “finished” artistic project during the PMP 2-month Artist Residency.
Our PMP partner the Lapland University of Applied Sciences offer online tutorial sessions, mentoring the PMP artists as to the ways they can create the structure and content of the chapter they are writing to the Toolkit. The chapter’s content can be a written narrative and different media material. Since there will be a hard copy version of the toolkit (pdf), QR codes can be utilized so the reader can access video materials that the artists have included in the toolkit chapter.
Turku residency
During the time of the November – December 2023 PMP Turku UAS 2-month artist residency we networked with Kone Foundation’s internationally recognized Saari Residency artist program. Other engagements included networking by our local Turku UAS NATs with Turku area artists. We interacted with Lorenzo Li Greci, a bio-artist and scientist from Palermo, Sicily, Italy who lives in Parainen, just outside of Turku at the beginning of the Finnish Archipelago and also Eeva Hiidensola a local Turku City pyrographer.
The PMP “Professional Media Presence for Artists” Toolkit will be one of the main PMP footprints left behind as an important guide for artists to use. PMP is about examining the technological tools artists need within the ever-changing landscape of online media. But perhaps even more important PMP is about the ways for artists to express who they are, what they wish to share, create and exchange. Ultimately PMP is for artists to find ways to maintain their “humanness”, their humanity in the digital domain.
During November – December 2023, Turku UAS’ Arts Academy hosted from our PMP Croatian partner, Culture Hub Croatia , Irena Krčelić (IG: @irenakrcelic) and from our Maltese partner Prisms Karen Briffa (IG: @kejks_kk).