AADK Spain is an artist-run platform that develops spaces for research and contemporary creation. With a focus set on experimental processes, its primary interest is to explore the notions of body, territory, and spatiality. The platform advocates the decentralization of culture and the access to contemporary art in non-urban areas. It addresses local issues as means to understand global problems.

Currently based in Centro Negra (Blanca, Murcia) it holds several programs among which its Artist Residency and its Cruce Programs stand out. The organization fosters networks with other cultural and artistic enterprises, helping to promote their mobility at national and international circuits, believing that all the artists hosted are an active part of the platform.

Artist Residency is an interdisciplinary and socially committed program that offers its attendants a space for analysis and artistic creation. It aims to facilitate research in rural environments, highlighting the value of local knowledge as a means to re-think how these locations can position themselves in an era of massive urbanization through a social, historical and geographical perspective.

Cruce, Space for Transformation is an initiative intended for professionals who need to disconnect from their daily rhythms, those who need a space to create, hold workshops, events or exhibitions, focus on analysis and dissemination of their work; or just make a temporary withdrawal. Cruce is a program designed to bring together resources, spaces and knowledge.

Both programs facilitate the encounter between people of different origins, trajectories and ideas. Throughout their stay, the participants of our Artist Residency and Cruce Programs create a temporary and caring community that shares experiences and knowledge.

There are several differences between the Cruce program and the Residency Program. Cruce has a different structure, the purpose of the program is to make it possible for us to share our resources and services in a more flexible way. The Residency Program’s approach is more focused on artistic research and process experimentation, while the Cruce Program’s approach is closer to that of an artistic or creative production residency.

One of the main differences between the two is that the Residency Program is a curatorial project whose lines of research are “body, territory and spatiality”, broad concepts that can be approached from different disciplines, and that link the process itself with the context. In the case of Cruce participants, their process does not need to be related to the context or the main axes of the platform.

In the case of the Residency Program, residents come for a minimum period of one month. They have accommodation, can work in one of the provided spaces in Centro Negra, receive mentoring and feedback from the organizing team, can use the coworking space and their work is documented in photo and / or video format, and AADK Spain disseminates their work on their networks. Residents have production assistance for their presentation at the monthly Open Studios (does not include production costs), and they become part of the archive and if there is the opportunity, their work is shown at relevant festivals or exhibitions.

In the case of Cruce, applicants can choose from the different resources and services and request each of them individually (e.g. in case participants want to use an artist studio, they have to request it as well in addition to the accommodation and pay the respective fee for each). Cruce applicants can come for periods shorter than a month (minimum two weeks).

Cruce is a program designed to bring together resources, spaces and knowledge. It facilitates the encounter between people of different origins, trajectories and ideas, with the common interest of being part of a temporary and caring community and of sharing experiences and knowledge.