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Artist Residency

Artist Residency Press Release Template and Example

Announcing a new residency programme, an open call, or a selected artist. Residencies produce little that is immediately visible, so the release has to be specific about what the public will eventually get.

The example

Maria Alvarez Named 2026 Resident at the Piedras Negras Mill Archive

A nine-month residency with access to the municipal textile archive, concluding with a public exhibition in June 2027

Maria Alvarez has been selected as the 2026 resident at the Piedras Negras Mill Archive. The nine-month residency begins in September and concludes with a public exhibition in June 2027.

The residency provides a studio in the former Mill No. 3 building, a stipend of 240,000 pesos, a materials budget, and supervised access to the municipal textile archive, which holds production records, dye ledgers and pattern books from eleven mills that operated in the region between 1911 and 2012.

Alvarez was selected from 112 applicants by a panel of three. She proposes to work directly from the dye ledgers, reconstructing discontinued colours and weaving them into a sequence of works that follow one mill's output across a single year.

The residency includes two open studio days, in December and April, and a public talk in March. The concluding exhibition will be shown at the archive and travel to Galería Méndez in Madrid in late 2027.

Residency: September 2026 to June 2027

Open studios: 6 December 2026 and 18 April 2027

Public talk: 14 March 2027

Concluding exhibition: June 2027, Piedras Negras Mill Archive

Press enquiries: press@example-archive.example

Every artist, gallery and institution in this example is invented.

Why it works

Give the public something to diarise

Open studios, a talk, a final exhibition, with dates. A residency announcement with no public dates gives listings editors nothing at all, which is most of the recipients.

State the support honestly

Stipend, studio, materials, access. Artists share this information whether you publish it or not, and being the programme that publishes it is a reputational advantage.

The proposal is the interesting part

Reconstructing discontinued dye colours from ledgers is concrete and unusual. "Will develop new work in response to the archive" describes every residency ever awarded.

Conventions
  • Give exact duration with start and end dates.
  • State the stipend and what else is provided.
  • Say how many applied and who selected.
  • Describe the proposal specifically.
  • List every public-facing date.
What gets it deleted
  • Announcing a residency with no public outcome.
  • Withholding the stipend.
  • Describing the proposal in terms that would fit any artist.
  • Failing to say what happens to the work afterwards.
Write yours

ArtWire writes this one for you

Nineteen categories, each with its own register, so an auction result does not read like a residency announcement. Free to start, no credit card.

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