Nature, Art & Habitat residency: an eco-laboratory of multidisciplinary practice at Soggiorno Mazzoleni, located in Taleggio Valley, Bergamo, Italy – is a summer program that aims to unfold and display a sensitive type of culture that relates to nature as a source of inspiration and a measure of available resources. The ultimate goal of NAHR is to unveil intimate links among all living organisms for more resilient development in which humans and nature coexist. Alongside free participation in the program (residency and workshops) and free accommodation, NAHR will provide to selected residents intensive community exchange in a rich environmental setting.

At the outset of the Anthropocene and in consideration of current pressing climatic threats, the NAHR program seeks to push toward a deep rethinking of the environment and its functions, by challenging creative and critical minds alike to produce innovative interpretations of nature as a resilient but fragile resource and space. By looking macroscopically at the Earth’s ecosystems – climate, geology, soil, water, air, sun – and then reading the valley’s flowers, ferns, bees, pebbles, barns, villagers, shops, etc. microscopically, NAHR intends to investigate different natural components each year, their presence and their integrated coexistence in the Taleggio Valley, and expects to challenge participants to approach these in novel ways.

NAHR is a one-month residency offered to six multidisciplinary professionals and one university level student active in the fields of bio-inspired arts, design, architecture, as well as anthropology, botany, natural sciences, literature, technology, economy or a cross-disciplinary blend of any of these. An international jury will select the residents based on their proposals. Selection criteria will include feasibility, originality, and overall quality of the proposals. Each NAHR residency is supplied without fees; lodging is provided. Residencies will be awarded according to independent project proposals that best explore the 2017 topic Rock and stone: material culture and cultures of making; candidates are asked to consider how their proposals might best explore how to build dynamic relationships and articulations between the Valley’s ecological resources, socio-cultural practices, and the built environment.

Proposals have to consider the Taleggio Valley as a case study and will understand the residency is an opportunity to develop individual research paths. Proposals must aim to explore in-depth the domains of nature and landscape alongside the identity and memory of the valley situated in the heart of the Orobie Alps. Approaches may include the tangible and intangible heritage of rural buildings, artifacts, works, as well as oral stories, knowledge, know-how, traditions, crafts, flavors, habits of the local population and communities that participate, legitimize, perpetuate, and generate an in situ cultural logic of people and place.

Selection priority will be given to proposals that demonstrate both a direct engagement with the surrounding nature and the human habitat, through objectives and methods, and the ability to produce an artifact such as an installation, a thematic path, a sculpture, paintings, texts, food recipes, as new types of landmark on the Valley's territory. Applicants need to demonstrate via their portfolio a strong commitment to research and investigation, as well as demonstrate the production of previous work relating to the scope of NAHR.

Current NAHR call for a summer residency in Italy is extended until March 2021. Keep checking their website for varying programs and deadlines.