Theme 2025

Call for applications: Tricksters, Unite!

In a radicalizing world, the figure of the trickster and the cultural techniques attached to him can offer subversive counter-models to alleged allegations. As propagandists of crossroads and ambiguities, tricksters invite us to play with perceptions, to question absolute rules and to collide with certainties in well-dosed doses. Tricksters can shake up cosmological and ideological orders. Tricksterism characterizes the simultaneous play with the seemingly incompatible and thus also offers a fundamental model of thought for artistic work.

The Artist Residency Schloss Balmoral invites you to an assembly of artistic, curatorial and art mediating positions around shifting perspectives, expanding areas of possibility, smuggling, enabling the utopian; techniques of resistance and thinking differently, be they of an artistic-aesthetic or political-social nature. The year 2025 will be a constellation of gatherings in the name of tricksterism.

Our annual theme 2025 is embedded in the local conditions in Bad Ems, Germany, and in transnational discourses. A program curated by the artistic management team will explore the theme in depth with discussions, reading groups and excursions over the course of the scholarship year beginning in April 2025. It is also interwoven with the Europe-wide FORTHEM program, which revolves around the theme of ‘Unmaking’, in particular the theme of ‘Unmaking the Citizen/Wishing No One an Identity’ – the latter inspired by the work of the Balmoral alumna Constanza Mendoza.

Application process

Artists, curators and art educators who feel the calling of the annual theme ‘Tricksterism’ are invited to apply to the Artist Residency with their portfolio. For the first time, we are offering scholarships for ‘Educators in Residence’ and ‘Theorists in Residence’, alternating annually. A 4-month scholarship is aimed specifically at artists who are suffering persecution and threats.

For all applications, please apply via the following link.

If you wish to submit catalogs, please send them by post to the Artist Residency Schloss Balmoral, Villenpromenade 11, 56130 Bad Ems/Germany. If you wish the catalogs to be returned, please enclose 10 euros. Otherwise, we will take the liberty of adding the catalogs sent to us to our library.

The Artist Residency Schloss Balmoral welcomes applications from people with children.
Unfortunately, our historic building is not yet barrier-free. We encourage artists and curators with disabilities to talk to us about the possibilities of a residency. Please direct any inquiries in this regard directly to the artistic director, Dr. Katharina Fink (director@balmoral.de).

Pets are not permitted.

A jury meeting in summer 2024 will decide on the selection of applicants.