Mémento, résidences 1998

A residency as an artistic reality occupies a highly meaningful niche – one that is expanding vigorously today. As a counterpoint to work in the studio, exhibitions, and the many art events to which artists are invited, the residency marks a pause, a time to take a breath. This retreat is now inscribed within a physical and human landscape that lends itself to various types of experimentation. In 1998, the seventeen artists who stayed at Est-Nord-Est experienced, to various degrees, changes of course and disorienting questioning, for some, and a constructive intersection of cultures, for others. The artists, who came from Australia, Spain, France, Japan, and Canada, mastered new techniques and original procedures likely to lead to previously unthought-of ways of working.