Right to the last minute of the deadline, p.art.ners berlin-windhoek have received applications from visual artist from all over Namibia, for the “shared experiences” stipend pro-gram. Artists from as far as Rundu, Ongwediva, Swakopmund and Keet-manshoop, as well as from the capital, have followed the invitation from p.art.ners berlin-windhoek to apply for a residency stipend program, which enables artists to live and work in Berlin for a few months.
Christoph Tannert, Director of Bethanien Artists could apply for one of two exciting stipend options on offer. The first one is a prestigious opportunity for one established Namibian artist to live and work at the internationally renown-ed Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin for a year. With its 25 studios, Künstlerhaus Bethanien represents one of the largest establishments among international resi-dency programs and is renowned as one of the most prestigious institutes for the support of contem-porary art. The selected Namibian artist will have an own studio space and access to different fully-equipped sculptural and print-making workshops and technical assistance. The artist should use the stipend to work towards an exhibition in the gallery of the Künstlerhaus Betha-nien. This serves to intro-duce the artist and his/her work to a large cosmo-politan audience in Europe, and will hopefully be a great stepping stone to a suc-cessful international career. It is also ideally suited to establish contacts to art institutions, galleries and artists from all over the world, while gaining a better understanding of the workings of the interna-tional art scene. The artist can focus on their creative work, free from their usual everyday distractions or financial restrictions, and learn new skills and exchange ideas. p.art.ners envisions that the artists will also act as artistic ambassadors for Namibia and hopefully coming back to share their experience and new skills with their fellow artists back in Namibia. Flights, accom-modation, studio and living
expenses are covered, as well as the expenses to hold a solo exhibition.
The second stipend program is for up-coming artists who are invited to live and work in Berlin for 2 to 4 months. They have the opportunity to make use of the BBK (Professional Association of Berlin Artists) sculptural or print making workshops, which are also fully equipped and frequented by many well-known Berlin and inter-national artists. They are encouraged to explore the Berlin art scene and visit exhibitions, meet other artists and create artworks. This stipend will hopefully open new horizons and gives a glimpse into the international art world, and through this encourage and impact positively on the development of these up-coming artists.
All stipend holders are required to hold talks or presentations, organized by p.art.ners, about their own art and/or Namibian art in general to the public and schools, in order to raise awareness and interest about Namibian art.
The international jury, comprising of three art professionals from Namibia and three from Berlin, will announce their selection by the end of June. Namibian jurors include Mr Ervast Mtota, Acting Director of Arts Education and Trai-ning, Ministry of Youth, National Services, Sport and Culture, Prof Hercules Viljoen, Head of the Visual Arts Department of the University of Namibia, and Ms Imke Rust, director of  p.art.ners berlin-windhoek and initiator of the “shared experience” artistic ex-change project. The jurors from Berlin are Mr Peter Herrmann (Gallery Own-er, Galerie Herrmann),
Ms Gabriele Horn (Dir-ector Kunst-Werke) and Mr Christoph Tannert (Director Künstlerhaus Bethanien).
The jury’s decision will be announced at the beginning of July 2008 and the first artists will leave in September 2008.
The residency program is made possible with the generous support of our sponsors: Air Namibia, Stiftung Deutsche Klassen-lotterie Berlin, Tagesspiegel, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen und Deutsche Botschaft in Namibia.