Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the jury meeting regarding the open call of the year 2020 is in planning for fall 2021.
The MAK Center Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program at the Pearl M. Mackey Apartments is a six-month residency offered twice annually to a total of six emerging international artists and architects. The main focus of the residency is on the purposeful long-term support of individual young artists and architects, and on creating new interdisciplinary opportunities and confrontations through lively exchange. This unique program is funded by the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, in cooperation with the MAK.
Each spring, a high profile jury is convened in Vienna to select the winning applications submitted by early career cultural producers from around the world. The residencies are awarded to independent projects exploring and complicating the relation between art and architecture. Projects are chosen according to their ability to critically examine current trends in art, architecture, and society; make a compelling connection with Los Angeles as a place for implementing or continuing the applicant's own work; and demonstrate a conceptual and experimental approach.
Emphasis is placed on the location of the residency in Los Angeles. Without a doubt, Los Angeles has become a primary location for critical activity in art, architecture, and urban theory, and residents’ projects often reflect, incorporate, and address specific facets of the city and its social fabric.
Residency terms run from October through March, and from April through September. The program has been running continuously since October 1995.
Each resident is given an apartment in the R.M. Schindler-designed Pearl M Mackey Apartments (1939) in the Mid-Wilshire District of Los Angeles, a monthly stipend, and the support of MAK Center staff. Key staff members work with the residents to arrange meetings with relevant artists, architects, curators, critics, and educators, and to facilitate their research and projects. Residents are encouraged to participate in MAK Center activities, as well as attend meetings, workshops, and project discussions with other artists and students.
Completed works are presented to the public in an exhibition towards the end of each residency period. Documentation of these works is then permanently catalogued in the MAK Center Archive—an online version of the archive is available at MAKcenterarchive.org
The residency program has a distinguished list of nearly 200 alumni and has included participants from Austria, Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, and the UK.
