Residencies

Applications are now open

Apply by: Sunday 10 August 2025, 23:59

>> Learn more

>> Apply here

Baltic x Shape Arts Emergent is a hybrid residency and support programme for early-career disabled artists with a £5k bursary. The open call welcomes applications from disabled artists/creative practitioners in the first five years of their career.

About Shape Arts

Shape Arts is a disability-led organisation breaking barriers to creative excellence. Shape Arts delivers a range of projects supporting marginalised artists, as well as training cultural venues to be more inclusive and accessible for disabled people as employees, artists, and audiences. Running alongside this portfolio is the NLHF funded National Disability Movement Archive and Collection (NDMAC), a radical collecting and retelling of the Disability Rights Movement’s heritage story; and, until recently led by Shape, Unlimited, which, largely supported by Arts Council and British Council funding, provides a platform for disabled artists to develop, produce and show ambitious and high-quality work, and which aims to transform perceptions of how the work of disabled artists is received in the mainstream art world.

Applications opening soon

The Baltic | States residency programme enables artists’ research and professional development through a series of supported residencies at Baltic, Gateshead. The participants are invited to respond to the current shifting geopolitical landscape in Europe and develop work which explores ideas around identity, citizenship and belonging. Participants are encouraged to find points of connection between the Baltic region and the North East of England, building networks with the artistic communities and creating dialogue which transcends borders and geographies at a time of rapid social and political change.

The residencies provide opportunities for participating artists to meet curators and arts professionals based in the North East and visit arts spaces in the region. During their residency, participants are invited to share their research and experiences with the wider public through hosting an open studio event, screening, artist’s talk, performance or workshop.

This year, we will be partnering with NART to support a North East-based emerging artist to spend a month in residence in Narva, Estonia in 2026. Narva is located on the Estonian-Russian international border and is Estonia’s third largest city.

About the Partner Institutions

The Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center (ECADC) is a non-profit foundation focused both on fostering international exposure for artists from Estonia and on developing the contemporary art scene in Estonia. Functioning as an umbrella organisation for Estonian partner institutions, the Center is creating strategic international partnerships in the field of contemporary art. Founded in 2012, ECADC receives ongoing financial support from Estonian Ministry of Culture and Estonian Cultural Endowment. Team members are based in New York and Tallinn, Estonia. In collaboration with its partner organisations, ECADC aims to develop a sustainable infrastructure for contemporary art that would lead to further internationalisation of the field. As of autumn 2019, ECADC operates the multifunctional Kai Art Center at the seaside Noblessner harbour complex in Tallinn.

Narva Art Residency (NART) is a cultural platform founded in 2015. It facilitates residencies, art exhibitions, talks and educational workshops. It is located in Narva city on the Estonian-Russian border on the historical Kreenholm site. The international artist-in-residency programme is open for artists operating across a wide range of disciplines, including visual arts, music, performance, architecture, design, film, literature, curatorial practices and more. It generates creative exchange between practitioners and strengthens links with the local community. NART is located at the historicist villa, which was originally built for the director of Kreenholm Textile Manufacture. In close proximity stand the vacant factory buildings that once formed the largest enterprise of its kind in Europe.