Open Call for granted AIR program in Reaykjavík, Iceland

Open Call for Artists Based in Nordic-Baltic Countries: SÍM Residency two-months February - March 2025 granted artist-in-residence programme.

Application Deadline: 5th of November 2024

The SÍM Residency is delighted to announce its February-March 2025 extended residency program, tailored specifically for artists and researchers from the Nordic-Baltic region. This unique two-month residency invites multidisciplinary artists interested in the convergence of art, science, and environmental activism, offering an unparalleled opportunity to explore the pressing issue of the climate crisis and its impact on Iceland’s glacial ecosystems.

Residency Overview

For over 22 years, the SÍM Residency has hosted more than 3,000 international artists seeking creative inspiration amidst Iceland’s stunning natural landscape. This residency builds upon our tradition, with a special focus on fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists, and environmental activists. During this period, artists will engage with Iceland’s unique geography and ecology, combining field research, creative exploration, and scientific inquiry.

Participants will be based at Korpúlfsstaðir, a dynamic hub that houses both the residency apartment and 37 local artists’ studios, SÍM Hlöðuloftið exhibition space and the meeting hall, fostering an environment of collaboration and creative exchange. The residency will culminate in a series of panel discussion, curated exhibition at the end of the residency showcasing research outcomes, artistic experimentation, and project proposals.

Grants & Support

This program is funded by the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture, which covers:
- travel costs
- residency fees, accommodation
- expedition to Glacier
- stipend of 2.000,00 EUR for the whole period
- material costs 300,00 EUR.
- SÍM membership card
- Monthly city bus pass

Artists are encouraged to seek additional funding from local arts councils or institutions in their home countries if necessary.

​Program Focus: Art, Science & Environmental Activism

The February-March 2025 program is dedicated to investigating the rapid changes in Iceland’s glacial systems, with a particular focus on the Vatnajökull glacier, one of the largest in Europe. The residency program will serve as a platform for a deeper understanding of the climate crisis, its impact on fragile glacial ecosystems, and the broader implications for the planet through a combination of collective learning and studying, open-ended research and experimentation, and on-site field expeditions.

​The residency program invites artists from diverse backgrounds and practices to work and think together about what new perspectives, knowledge, sensibilities, and imaginaries can become a source of change toward a more sustainable and livable future. Thinking about the present moment and future of the glacial ecosystem, the residency program seeks new insights into its fragility, complexity, and connectedness, which can inspire critical thinking and action that can lead to transformative shifts at various scales, meaningfully addressing planetary urgencies and today´s overlapping crises.

Additional information about the residency is available here.