The residency is specially designed for artists to engage with the specific visual medium of photography books and to provide them with stimulating artistic environment for their professional development. This unique program represents a combination of a residency and a educational program in order to gain deeper knowledge in the field of photography books with regard to the wide spectrum of the medium of photography as well as aspects of self-publishing and technical aspects on how to transform an image-based project into a book.

The program includes professional mentorship by XYZ Books editors and external invited guests providing project and technical assistance in order to help the artists gradually and systematically manage the process and various stages of creating an artbook, from acquiring editing and prepress skills towards the production of the final artbook dummy (an artbook prototype).

The purpose of the residency is to provide artists with creative and inspiring environment with their own working place in our shared and co-working studio where they can develop new ideas and broaden their artistic curriculum.

Each Residency stay is 1 month.

One artist or a duo of artists can be hosted each round of the residency program. Hosting more artists as a collective during one round of residency may be taken into consideration after the prior consultation with our team.

The residency has the cost of 1500€ (Plus VAT if applicable) for the 1 month, which includes:

• Working space (24/7), with wi-fi and access to communal kitchen.

• Access to Imacon, Epson V700 Scanners, Canon Digital imagePress V700 and A3+ Inkjet Printer with the assistance of our team members.

• 4 mentorship sessions throughout the residency period, with the editorial team of XYZ Books, and 1 mentorship with a special invited guest.

• A private bookbinding workshop with Estúdio Bulhufas.

• Production of 1 Dummy in partnership with Estúdio Bulhufas.

• Open Studio in case this is the desire of the artist in residency, at his own expenses.

• Special prices for exhibition fine-art printing

Living costs, insurance and travel expenses are not included in the residency fee. The full insurance coverage is strongly advised to be arranged by the selected artists in advance.

The residents are encouraged to participate in a ilha and XYZ Books activities and engage in the local artistic scene. The artists may therefore propose to launch:

• Workshops

• Public artist talk and presentation of the residents including presentation of their portfolio or the projects to be realized during the residency

• Open studio / Pop-up exhibition - a one day exhibition or residency finissage presenting the projects and artworks of the residents

The residents and their projects will be promoted via a ilha and XYZ books websites and social media.

Our team also provides support to artists applying independently in searching for external funding opportunities including international and local relevant scholarships and grants by offering to prepare the official letter of invitation to apply for the grants.

The residency is open to all applicants, regardless of age and nationality for those applying independently.

The applications are free of charge

A sufficient level of English or Portuguese is required to be able to understand and cooperate

The applicant should be a professional or emerging artist, however academic requirements are not needed.

To apply for the XYZ Books Residency Program, please submit the application documents via email to: info@artbooks.xyz

The application documents should contain:

• *Biography or Resumé in English or Portuguese

• *Portfolio consisting of current and previous work and projects

• A project description and images of a specific body of work the applicant plans to create during the residency program

*Both the Biography and the Portfolio may be submitted in the form of a web link to the artist's webpage or can be submitted as a PDF document.