• Resources
• Green transition/environmental sustainability

Greening Artistic Residencies Focus on Creative Europe Countries

This Cultural Mobility Funding Guide is part of On the Move’s recent endeavour to focus on a topic with a complementary geographical scope. This guide’s focus for this 2025 edition is on ‘green artistic residencies’ in Creative Europe countries. Greening artistic residencies was chosen in part because ‘residencies’ is one of the largest types of opportunities listed on the website (at almost 50% of all open calls listed in 2024) and sustainability and environment is one of the largest themes (with 13.8% of calls labelled as such in 2024).

The main objective of this topic-based Cultural Mobility Funding Guide is to provide an entry point to a list of funding opportunities for green artistic residencies. Through in-depth articles and case studies, it also aims to provide culture professionals, residency managers, stakeholders and artists with ideas, reflections and guidance on how to collectively make artistic residencies more environmentally friendly at various levels (topic, artistic work, venues and local connections, travels, etc.).

You can read this guide while using different entry points:

Part 1 includes a selection of organisations and initiatives that have funded opportunities over the past five years, identified through On the Move’s database. These organisations can be relevant for your own (green) mobility or as a residency’s manager and/or professional to identify funding or inspiring examples.

Part 2 proposes four in-depth articles related to how to approach this issue of greening artistic residencies, each of them providing in their conclusion key takeaways for consideration (on definitions, greening practices, islands’ connections and the importance of networks).

Part 3 introduces some practical case studies focused on one country (Slovenia), multiple countries (through the RES ARTIS database) as well as experimentations in more sustainable travel.

The Guide is intended to support both artists and cultural organisations at various stages of the creative development.

Cultural organisations delivering residencies can use the examples and case studies provided as models for ways of working (through programme design, gaining ideas and practical steps of how they can green their residency spaces, and being pointed towards good practices in this area). Artists can use the guide to explore green residency spaces and projects.