Can Serrat

Not as advertised. Residencies are 2 months but artists choose 2 months within a 3 month time period, which means some artists will already be living and established at the residency for a month before other artists arrive. My experience and many others that I talked to at this residency was a negative one, it felt like being back at school, at an all girls school where there was cliques and you were not included if you were not in the clique. A group of artists that arrived at the same time stuck together and did nothing to welcome the new artists that arrived, completely ignored them. They loudly took up the social spaces in the house and made it uncomfortable for others to join. Even if you walked into the kithcne in the morning, no one would welcome you. As for the the accomodation and working space itself, the house is dark and only one room has the terrrace to sit out on, which is the room advertised on the website, most of the private rooms are small and not lit well. The beds are single camp beds pushed together to make a double bed and they aren't even the same size as each other so you can't sleep comfortably, it is a joke for the price you pay. The bathrooms, sinks and showers are open, you can hear everything. The sinks are in a communal room, you cannot even brush your teeth in peace. There was pressure form the clique group to make communal meals, if one did not want to particpatre and cook their own food, which they paid for, it was looked down on, wit others even asking to have some. The 'basic food' the residency provies is vegetables and spinach pasta, thats it. The surrounding nature is nice but it is not worth the mental load and outcastness you will feel. It all depends on who is iwth you on the residency of course my group may have been unlucky, but it seems like this clichy energy is constant. In terms of staff support, there really isnt much, one girl seems ot run most of it and does the group sessions i think it was once a week but it was up to each individual how much they contributed and most people didn't seem to want to talk about their owkr, which was also odd. The 'staff' are nic ebut they are most just people who come and go to the residency, there is no on site help or support 24hrs. There is two previous artists who come to stay in the house as co ordinators but they are really just artists doing their own work too. In terms of studio space there is 3 areas you can choose, but again it depends who has already set up in the space, one girl moved out of the studio after new people moved in. There isnt much to say about them, they are just rooms with desks. In terms of closeness to the city, it advertises that it is 40 mins to barcelona by bus. This bus is a locals bus and it only comes about every 4 hours, if even. The residency bus stop is also not an offical bus stop so you have to ask the bus driver to stop there, which is very daunting especially if you do not speak Catalan. The bus stops at the very edge of the city so it ends up being alot longer than 40 mins, but you also have to be very aware of the bus times for that certain day to make sure you are also able to get back. I think this reisdency is for a very specific type of person and the residency could do more to advertise that, it is really for nomadic creatives who dont care much about social connection but want to be in communal living. It is absolutely not the best for professional artists looking for a safe space to create and network.