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Melita Schaum (US writer) has answered in an interview with A Room of Her Own Foundation in 2013:

"What is one resource you wish every woman writer knew about?

Over the years I have had extraordinary experiences at writer’s colonies and artist residencies around the world. I think every woman should check out TransArtists, a resource listing domestic and international artist residencies: www.transartists.org."

A Room of Her Own Foundation is a nonprofit "transformational collective" of women supporting, connecting, and celebrating women in the arts. Melita Schaum was recipient of AROHO Orlando Prize for nonfiction in 2010. Find the full interview with Melita here.

TransArtists database

TransArtists database

The database hosted on www.transartists.org is one of our activities. But how does it work, what is listed, what criteria do we use ?

International residencies open for direct application

There are more and more artist-in-residence opportunities in the world, and many local, regional and national platforms and networks are providing an overview of residency programmes that are located in their area of expertise. That is why on TransArtists.org we provide you only with residency opportunities that are international, meaning open for more than one nationality (or even for any nationality).

Furthermore, as our aim is to focus on the artist's perspective and artist's needs, we only rarely list residency programmes that work by invitation only. Finally, note that it is free for any residency, small or big, old or new, institutional or artist-run, to be listed in our database. TransArtists.org is an information platform for artists, not a network of residencies.

Therefore, the main criteria to be listed in our database are

  • offering a residency opportunity that is not only a one-time opportunity.
  • to be a professional opportunity (no B&B, resort,…), and not intending to make profit out of the residency programme. We understand that there are costs related to running a residency programme, but we also consider a residency not to be a hotel/hostel facility.
  • to accept applications from artists (not per invitation only and preferably not only through bilateral exchanges).
  • to accept international artists (not only from the country in which you are based).

About deadlines, open calls, and updates of listings

Physical listing of artist-in-residence opportunitiesWe update our database on an ongoing basis. Residency programmes cannot update their listings themselves, as we want to know what kind of information is published on TransArtists.org. This is sometimes challenging, as we are a small team (there is less than one full-time position for the whole TransArtists.org website) and as there are more and more open calls and new residency programmes.

This explains why we sometimes are a bit late in publishing some open calls - but usually you can find these open calls somewhere else on the web, and in any case on the website of the residency programme. That is why we always advise you to have a look at the website of the artist-in-residence programme, as you might find there an open call not (yet) listed on TransArtists.org.

We aim at checking our whole database of 1.400 programme over the course of a year, and this is probably the biggest challenge with the database. That is why we are always very gratefull for your feedback about outdated information, new open calls, complaints, critics, doubts. Please get in touch with our main editor if you have information for us!

The overview of deadlines and the Apply any time page are automatically generated based on the information available in the listings of residency programmes. The open calls are short articles about current calls for residency application that do not necessarily fit in the listing of the residency programmes, or for special projects.


Search the database

So, 1.400 artist-in-residence programmes... That's a lot, and you might have difficulties to get started and find the right match for your project. That is why we have developped a checklist for artists with a list of questions you should ask yourself while searching for the right match. Furthermore, there are also certain filters in the database:

Note that the thematic filters are not yet covering the full database, and we need to take a more systematic approach. Feedback and tips from you are very welcome in this regard!

Finally, to answer a question that we get regularly: there is indeed no filter by financial criteria. Why didn't we implement it ? For two reasons:

  • we currently don't have the capacity to implement such a search criteria properly, as it needs lots of research before having the whole database covered.
  • Also, we believe money shouldn't be the main criteria for selection of a residency. If you find a place that asks for a financial contribution, it might not be the worst residency of your life (and other way around!).

Nevertheless, if you are looking only for artist-in-residence programmes fully covered, we advise you to have a look at the International Mobility Funding Guide by the Asia-Europe Foundation (focusing therefore on Asia and Europe), which from p.20 onwards lists residency programmes partially or fully covered.