Residencies create opportunities for artists to step outside their usual environments, engage with new contexts, and develop their practices through exchange, research and experimentation. While each residency experience is shaped by the artist’s individual interests and goals, the programme provides the time, space and connections that can spark new perspectives and unexpected creative paths. In this second collection of residency reflections (read the first one here), five artists/collectives share how their experiences abroad influenced their work, informed their research and expanded their understanding of artistic practice.

Li Yingdi: following in the footsteps of Robert WalserOpen studio at PROGR, Bern © Li Yingdi

Based in Beijing, Li Yingdi is a writer working primarily in nonfiction while also exploring fiction. During her residency at PROGR in Bern, she traced the life and footsteps of the writer Robert Walser. Her research extended well beyond the studio: in Bern, she explored the underground art space offy and the youth-led self-organised initiative Ansdalt; in Biel/Bienne, she visited the Juraplatz abandoned bus station project; and in Herisau, she retraced the Robert Walser Literary Trail, including a visit to the psychiatric sanatorium where Walser spent his final years. She also established close ties with the Robert Walser Zentrum and conducted extensive interviews with Bernhard Echte, the scholar who deciphered Walser’s microscripts. She is currently developing a series of travel essays based on these experiences. 

Wädenswil, a visit with Bernhard Echte © Li Yingdi

Meaningful local connections emerged through a combination of targeted introductions and everyday encounters. Supported by her coach, she quickly connected to youth-led cultural initiatives such as offy and Ansdalt, while daily life at PROGR fostered sustained relationships with fellow residents, including painter Sophie Ullrich and visual artist Sama Alshaibi. Through in-depth exchanges, collaborative activities and a jointly organised Open Studio event, she became deeply embedded in local artistic networks. As she reflected, ‘trust is built not through networking events, but through the slow accumulation of shared time and honest dialogue.’ 

Encountering people from different countries and backgrounds, she tried to maintain a position of neutrality. Rather than taking sides, she approached these moments through a more literary lens — treating everything she encountered as experience to be absorbed, observed, and reflected upon. This stance, she believes, echoes something of Walser himself: a way of being present without dominating, of listening without judging, which allowed her as an outsider to witness dynamics without distorting them. 

Li Yingdi and Sophie Ullrich, PROGR, Bern © Li Yingdi

Her residency wove together structured research with spontaneous exploration, with each continually enriching the other. Through nearly three months of tracing Robert Walser’s life and retracing his walking routes, she gained a deeper understanding of the landscapes, conditions and intellectual position that shaped his work. At the same time, encounters with local young artists, self-organised collectives and underground cultural spaces revealed the continuing spirit of Walser’s ideas within contemporary Switzerland. These experiences led her to reflect on questions of individuality, openness and resistance in a rapidly changing world, which now form the foundation of her ongoing literary practice. ‚In a world drifting toward chaos, conflict, and polarisation, how should the individual position themselves? How can one attain inner freedom?’  

Robert Walser Literary Trail in Herisau, Switzerland © Li YingdiAntonio Gonzaga Amador & Jandir Jr.: when security men perform

Since 2015, Brazilian performers Antonio Gonzaga Amador & Jandir Jr. have been developing their project Amador e Jr. Segurança Patrimonial Ltda (Amador and Jr. Property Security Ltd), a series of performances in which the two artists pose as security officials inside institutions —thus discussing the class and race relations that exist in the art system. During a residency at Atelier Mondial in Basel, the artists continued this research within a European context. While in Switzerland, they connected with several cultural practitioners and institutions, expanded their practice in drawing and performance, and presented their work on a few occasions.

During Atelier Mondial’s Open Studios, the duo presented several performances, such as Tongue, created during their residency, in which the guards have their tongues hanging out © Baran CeylanThey created a space filled with unfinished drawings, sketches, and notes. Papers that were filled over three months, while making contact with Swiss art institutions, where they observed the working conditions of museum guards and compared them with their own experiences monitoring exhibitions in Brazil. Thus, their workspace resembled the small notebooks that gallery guards sometimes scribble in secretly during their work, in the corner of an art gallery © Baran CeylanAnother work performed at Atelier Mondial was Rest, in which the guards rest lying on the ground © Baran CeylanJandir reads Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish during the performance Reading at Atelier Mondial © Baran CeylanAt the group show Unfortunate Grammar, the duo developed Service. During the performance, one of the guards stands at a designated workstation with one hand facing upwards, holding a table bell. If the bell rings, the service is done, and another security guard assumes the post. The show was a partnership between Atelier Mondial and Institut Kunst Gender Natur (IAGN), Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst (FHNW) © Skyler Yuki PhillipsOn another occasion, during the group show Inbetween, at Space 25, they performed Watchman: the security guards remain in ready position in the exhibition space, but with their eyes closed © Till LangschiedFinally, Antonio and Jandir participated in an ongoing performance at Kunsthaus Baselland. They showed Institutional spaces: corners. For this work, the guards remain facing one of the corners of the exhibition space, resting their foreheads to hold the walls © Ivana Kresic Kunsthaus Baselland, 2026Dominique Lanz: exploring textile waste, craft and community on Ghana’s coastNatural kola nut and turmeric dyed textiles drying © Dominique Lanz

In the first quarter of 2026, Swiss visual artist and textile designer Dominique Lanz was an artist in residence at Kokrobitey Institute in Accra, Ghana. In her practice, Dominique transforms discarded textiles into sculptural forms that blur the boundaries between craft, technology, and ecology. During her residency, she explored the intersecting themes of overconsumption and overproduction in the context of the second-hand textile trade in Accra and the associated waste originating from fast fashion systems.

Working onsite at Kokrobitey allowed Dominique to significantly expand her research practice by moving beyond her usual methods and engaging directly with her environment. Prior to the residency, her research relied on archival work, library visits, material experimentation, and online sources. The residency introduced what she describes as ‘a new form of research’ grounded in outdoor, hands-on learning. Working largely in open-air workshops immersed her in the local landscape and processes. Dominique gained insight into traditional textile crafts, such as using seawater to set natural dyes. ‘I experimented extensively with patterns on the institute’s grounds,’ she explains, noting that these experiences created unexpected connections that ultimately informed new work exploring camouflage within natural environments.

L: Drying textile dyed with kola nut; R: Setting natural dyes using seawater © Dominique LanzExploring textile camouflage © Dominique Lanz

The residency also provided first-hand insight into the global textile waste crisis and its local consequences. Visits to Accra’s Kantamanto market and exposure to textile and plastic waste along the coastline transformed her perspective on what she refers to as ‘waste colonialism.’ ‘Seeing it in person and being able to speak with the recipients of the clothing and to connect with local initiatives working to address this problem has broadened my horizon,’ Dominique reflects. Encounters with other artists working with discarded textiles also highlighted shared concerns viewed through different lived realities.

L: Beach cleanup at James Town; R: Behind the scenes photo shoot with Michael Aboya © Dominique Lanz

The installation Dominique developed during her residency, after the flood, plays with the notion of allomimesis – a biological form of mimicry where living organisms resemble their environments. She created camouflage fabrics using the batik wax-resist dyeing technique and natural dyes made from kola nut (indigenous to West Africa) and turmeric. As the work progressed, she realised the need to incorporate performance and photography, leading to a collaboration with Ghanaian photographer Michael Aboya.

Reflecting on her time in Ghana, Dominique described the residency as both personally and professionally transformative: ‘I’ve had so many wonderful, spontaneous experiences that I’ll never forget. I was particularly inspired by the grassroots initiatives and the strong emphasis on community within the local art scene, which I would like to incorporate into my life and work. I’ve also experienced once again how textile techniques and practices can connect people across cultures, which reinforces my work. It’s a very immediate material that resonates with almost everyone.’

‚after the flood‘ © Michael AboyaMehdi Dahkan: breath as a force for creating movement

In his work, Moroccan choreographer and performer Mehdi Dahkan often draws on folk and ritual practices of his home country, reimagining them through contemporary choreographic approaches. He uses body and movement as a primary medium, exploring their socio-political implications and the ways in which art can be a means of resistance and communication.

For his residency at Kaserne Basel in early 2026, Mehdi was inspired by Aïta, a form of traditional Moroccan music and dance in which breath lies at the heart of sound creation and community gatherings.

The artist examined breath as a vocal and physical medium for generating movement, sound, and light within a choreographic framework. By using respiration as both a physical and symbolic act, he reflected on what connects us beyond language, culture, or ideology.

In a way, the residency was an extension of another experience Mehdi had in Switzerland: a research trip in 2023, which contributed to shaping the performance Subject to, a solo calling for a deliberate pause and inviting the audience to plunge into an intimate space where the artist shares his unspoken truths.

Mehdi Dahkan, Subject to

In Kaserne, the choreographer revisited the themes from his previous project while also questioning and reshaping his practice. Working through the Swiss winter, he was faced with the difficulty of practicing outdoors, as he often does. ‘It forced me, in a good way, to rethink the adaptability of the work itself,’ he recalls. ‘Having this limitation helped rearrange my work, how it can also be presented in closed spaces while keeping the same values —proximity, randomness, the interaction with people.’

Extracts from KM of Resistance, Mehdi Dahkan’s work in progress presented at Kaserne Basel

The investigation led to the work in progress KMs of Resistance, presented at Kaserne at the end of his residency. Sharing the scene with another performer (Mohamed Bouriri), Mehdi created rhythmic, choreographic sequences using only breath, voice, and body, proposing a form of protest without slogans, where breath becomes a shared reminder of fragility, interdependence, and survival.

KMa of Resistance in quartet format

Since then, the work has evolved into two formats: for a duo, and a quartet. Tracing back to his research trip in 2023, the choreographer’s process has led to this body of work (Subject to and KMs of Resistance) that is likely to form part of a future trilogy centred around protesting and the relation with the audience.

Marie Schumann: hands-on textile research in IndiaDhokra experiments done together with a Dhokra master in Santiniketan © Arthshila Santiniketan

Zurich-based artist Marie Schumann uses textile techniques to explore relationships between body, material and architecture. This ongoing process leads to objects, sculptures or installations, which in turn form the basis for new process loops.

During her three-month residency in 2025 at Arthshila Santiniketan in West Bengal, India, she conducted research into textile methods in the region working in close proximity to many craftspeople. She reflects, ‚It was very special for me to reach within 10-20 minutes different practitioners whom I could learn from and work with.‘ Marie was particularly interested in the use of natural dyes and the Dhokra technique, which she sees as a ‚textile way of sculpting‘.

‚The way Dhokra uses wax threads as the basis for sculpting resonated very much with my textile thinking and I started experimenting with it‘, Marie explains. When she was invited to an art and architecture competition where the building was next to an industrial foundry, Marie put some of her knowledge from Santiniketan to use there.

Close-up of a textile scrap enclosed between two layers of paper © Arthshila Santiniketan

As part of her research on textile material culture in the region, Marie created works using handmade paper as layers of conservation for textile scraps collected from local tailors. ‚Through enclosing the scraps in a formal way between two layers of fibre-based paper, I could get involved with the textiles, patterns and materials used for dressing at this very moment in Santiniketan,‘ Marie explains.

During her residency, Marie also attended the Kochi Biennale where she forged connections that led to her work being showcased in Delhi during India Art Fair in February 2026.

Marie Schumann © Jocelyn 存