Put Evaluation into Practice: The Collaborative Residency Life Cycle

A residency is a conceptual space that typically sits within the physical space and networks of an organisation. The residency itself is intangible, yet exists through a structure of time,discussion, thought, action and proclamation. The residency provides space for creative practitioners to develop ideas within a supported environment, outside of their usual context. It enables immersion within different culture, exploration of practice with new people and a safe space to take risks. Practiced worldwide,the residency has become an invaluable resource for artists and the development of new work - but is its potential much greater? As producing organisations, can we work together to connect our individual residency spaces? Can we use this connection to increase value to artists and the development of art? Can we offer a more diverse cultural contribution? Can we open up our practice to new audiences? And in this unpredictable, global financial climate, can we offer greater stability by combining(often limited) resources? These were the leading questions that we posed ourselves five years ago. What happens if we go back to these outcomes and use them as a format for evaluating existing collaborative project sand testing and setting up new collaborative residencies? In this paper we will present the background, development and outcomes of our previous experience with collaborative residencies. At the same time we will focus on what we have termed the Collaborative Residency Life Cycle, a model that can serve as a means to start thinking and developing new collaborative residencies. AtISEA2018 we aim to test the model with the audience and existing labs and individual artists/practitioners in Durban as well as the wider region of South Africa