Group Residency Programme, Orkney - Air, Sea and Soil: SOUNDINGS and SURROUNDINGS
Sat 27 June – Sat 04 July 2026

SOUNDINGS and SURROUNDINGS has been devised around the relationships of ‘Air, Sea and Soil’, encompassing the Orkney Islands’ remarkable natural environment. Residents will be welcomed to the Birsay area of Orkney, where the bespoke programme will take place in 5-star self-catering accommodation (single rooms) and studio facilities, and through visits to Neolithic Orkney’s World Heritage Sites.
The Group Residency will be led by Tracy Mackenna (she/her), artist, educator and curator of The Museum of Loss and Renewal and facilitated by Tracy and programme contributors. Subject-specific contributions will be delivered by a range of multidisciplinary Orkney-based experts who have in common site-specific, participatory and socially engaged practices revolving around sound and environment. Their diverse skills, expertise and modes of working are activated to investigate lost futures, intersectional histories, ecological and personal landscapes, experimental identities, ruin memory, trauma mapping, site recording, material and immaterial realms, deep time, marginalised communities and hidden lives.
The Group Residency is offered for creative practitioners working in all creative disciplines and for those who have a strong interest in the investigation of the Group Residency themes in relation to space, sound and visuals. The group will comprise of approx. eight international participants.

FOCAL POINTS
Creative practices
Interdisciplinarity
Technological innovations
Synthesis of space, light and sound
Readings of alternative theories and texts
Co-learning
Individual practice
Experimentation and play
Semi-structured programme
Expert facilitator/s and guest contributors
Collective platform for encounters
Supportive, caring, non-hierarchical environment
Peer and self reflection
5-star self-catering accommodation (single rooms)
Immersive experience
Relationships to land, connections through place
Location specific, inc. Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site
Imagining futures
Publics; participants and audiences

AIM
The Group Residency will develop approaches to place that are experimental, inventive in their form, and that respond to place by paying attention to the intersections and collisions between art, culture, materiality, technologies and place. Individual experience will be regarded as being not at the world’s centre, but woven into its fabric.
Opportunities are created for creative practitioners and researchers to share and establish a bank of knowledge and creative strategies, both globally interconnected and hyper local, digital and analogue, for imagining new responses to places and the multiple, layered and contested histories they hold. Bringing together residents from a range of areas of practice and research, an international network will be established.

The Group Residency is offered for practitioners and researchers working in all creative disciplines and for those who have a strong interest in the investigation of the Group Residency themes in relation to space, sound and visuals. The group will comprise approx. eight international participants.

Accommodation
The residency programme will take place in the ancient and historic village of The Palace, in the parish of Birsay. It is situated on the St Magnus Way pilgrimage route on the Atlantic Ocean and amidst farmlands and sites of archaeological, historical and social importance in Orkney, accessible by foot and vehicle.
Accommodation is 5-star self-catering (single rooms) and is fully equipped, including wifi.

Workspace
Work spaces are shared and include ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ spaces.

Fees and Support
The Residency Programme is operated on a non-commercial cost-covering basis, and is financially supported by The Museum of Loss and Renewal in order to keep fees low. The residency fee is £1350 GBP, paid by the resident. It includes the residency programme, 5-star self-catering accommodation (single rooms) and work spaces, collection/return to nearest airport/ferry point.

A deposit of 50% is payable within three weeks of being offered a place on the residency programme (non-refundable). The remaining balance is payable eight weeks in advance of the residency start date. In the event that cancellation is required, residents may cancel up to a minimum of six weeks prior to their residency start date. If a resident has to end the residency early due to personal circumstances, a refund cannot not be issued.
You will be responsible for funding and organising your own travel, your own insurances and any visa requirements particular to your country of origin. Travel information will be supplied (Kirkwall Airport and Orkney Ferries), and collection/drop-off at the beginning and end of the Group Residency will be arranged.
We do not have external funding for this project, so regret that we are unable to offer assistance with fees, travel, production costs or other subsistence. Typically, successful applicants source funding by applying to their national arts funding bodies, personal fundraising, or through academic institutional support. Formal Letters of Invitation can be provided to assist in this process.

APPLY
Applications via the easy online application form here:

https://tracy.mackenna.studio/the-museum-of-loss-and-renewal-residencies/group-residency-programme-orkney/air-sea-and-soil-soundings/

Please note that feedback on unsuccessful applications cannot be provided.