Artist-in-Residence
Artist-In-Residence Program
The Program
The Artist-in-Residence Programme at the Opera Village was established in late 2015 as one of the first artist residency programmes of its kind in West Africa and has been curated by Akinbode Akinbiyi since 2020. It invites national and international artists to use the Opera Village as a space for living and working. The three-month residency takes place annually from October to December. During their stay, artists live in the guest houses designed by Francis Kéré and receive a stipend as well as an allowance for material costs. Travel expenses to and from Burkina Faso are also covered.
Originally conceived as a platform for artistic exchange, the programme builds on Christoph Schlingensief’s vision of an international artist exchange, which he formulated as early as 2010. The Opera Village was intended not only to contribute to changing the living and everyday realities of the local community, but also to serve as a cultural meeting place for artists from different disciplines. Art is understood as a means of communication that can challenge existing and often exoticising perceptions of the African continent and open up new perspectives.
Over the past years, the programme has developed into an innovative combination of artistic practice, social exchange and societal transformation. The local community has increasingly become a central focus. In close cooperation with local partner organisations, a comprehensive programme of workshops is developed each year, creating opportunities for people from the surrounding communities to actively participate and engage with social and political issues through artistic practice. Since 2024, new formats focusing on media literacy and women’s rights have been developed, among others. The growing participation demonstrates how deeply these initiatives have become rooted in the local community.
The residency programme is complemented by events in Europe that bring together interdisciplinary perspectives on art, global justice and equitable intercultural exchange. These events also provide a space to discuss visions and potentials for the further development of the Opera Village. In this way, the programme is increasingly building a network that extends beyond artistic practice and understands art and creativity as starting points for social change.
Since 2025, this year’s Artist-in-Residence Programme has been supported by
but it is rather the idea of officially robbing Africa, which means one has to thereby take one’s own body along, as well as deploy it as an information carrier. Not a Goethe traveling art snob, who discerns an opportunity to show the African what German culture is capable of, but rather a pale European leaf, which embarks to Africa for further exposure.”
