Visual Arts Residencies in Croatia

SEA AIR

Silba, Croatia

SEA AIR is an off-grid, process-oriented artist residency on Silba, a car-free island in the Adriatic Sea, Croatia, inviting international artists, writers, sound explorers, herbalists, and cultural practitioners for 2–8 week stays in a remote forest home powered by solar energy and rainwater. The program emphasizes ecological awareness, intuitive processes, ritual practices, and deep listening, with no pressure for results, offering solitude, freedom, and the island itself as a studio. It welcomes queer, BIPOC, and emerging artists, with a basic donation (~25 EUR/day) covering utilities or alternative contributions like barter and workshops.

WHW Akademija (WHW Academy)

Zagreb, Croatia

WHW Akademija, founded in 2018 by the curatorial collective What, How & for Whom/WHW in Zagreb, Croatia, is an innovative, tuition-free interdisciplinary program for emerging artists. It embodies the acronym of its founding collective, signifying the focus on economic organization's key questions: What, How, & for Whom. The program, accepting 8–12 fellows annually for a seven-month period, is centered on new forms of self-determination, critical reflection, and artistic encounters. The curriculum includes intensives, experimental exercises, workshops, and seminars, alongside public exhibitions, performances, and discursive programs. A partnership with the Kontakt Collection, Vienna, enriches the program, focusing on experimental art from Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe since the late 1950s. The program’s design emphasizes “learning by doing,” fostering a dialogic educational process and collective co-learning and co-production of critical content. Structured to blend exhibitions, performances, and collective actions, the program alternates between two-week intensives and ongoing workshops and seminars, inviting curators, artists, and theorists to engage in various co-learning formats. This unique approach allows participants to test ideas, make discoveries, and engage in trial and error, encouraging a blend of theoretical and practical learning without traditional academic constraints.