Residency

Espace d’Art Contemporain Les Thermes+

résidences d’artistes

4, Place des Bains, 52400 Bourbonne-les-Bains, France

Contact: eaclesthermes@outlook.com or by facebook.

How to reach:

Nearest airports : Basel and then by train to Vesoul. Paris and then by train to Chaumont. Where you’ll be taken by car to Bourbonne-les-Bains.

Applications:

All year. Receipt of your application will be acknowledged within 3 or 4 days, but the final decision about collaboration can take up to 2 month, if visa needed even longer.

Applications for residencies can be submitted via FB messaging or email.

Applications should include a portfolio with CV, or current website, as well as a description of the work/project, that the applicants wish to realize during their visit

Duration of residencies:

A minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 6 months.

Decision about collaboration:

Depends on how many applicants are accepted, how your work fits into the group and into the program of the Art Space. Most important: It will depend on the energy, intensity, sincerity of your work. Also the personal courage shown, the uniqueness and contemporary relevance of your work.

Please contact us only after reading the following text carefully, with all its details and in its entire lenghts.

If you are still interested after reading and understanding, we will be pleased to consider your application.

Residencies for all kinds of artists, theorists, scientists.

At present, residencies can be accompagnied by FINAL SHOWS/EXPOS.

(Applications will be considered on request, for use of a residence as a place for recreation, or retreat without public contact.)

For future exhibitions, we generally favor site-specific work, group work, ideas containing interaction with the public and/or local community. But we are open to all kinds of work.

The owner is often present, but arrangements will be made so that contact only happens rarely in the  corridors or at the front door.

This is for her own well-being as well as for the privacy of the residents.

You don’t have to like the owner, D.B.A. or her artwork to be accepted for a residency, though a certain sympathy might help. My work will not be part of each expo. Polite behavior makes life easier. D.B.A. is open to well-funded critics.

Description and conditions of residency:

Working languages: english/french/german. If you like to work in exchange with the local population french is best, everything else rather difficult.

Number of artists resident at one time:

2 – 4, depending the need of privacy of the residents.

Living and working spaces can be used free of charge:

2 large bedrooms, each with a double loft bed, a desk, a clothes rail + storage boxes. (The first room measures about 25m², the  second about 20m²). Large, nice kitchen with washing machine and a very small toilet / shower room. The  last 2 must be shared with the other residents.

For all residents there is a fairly large studio of about 60m² to share. The studio has normal   daylight, 1. floor, (3 windows to the north) but is not exceptionally bright.

Bigger room:

Smaller room:

Kitchen:

Toilets and shower:

Common areas:

Halls and staircases on groundfloor and first floor, can be used as expo spaces:

Main hall, can be used as expo space:

Lounge, ground floor:

Studio working space:

The Wi-Fi is free.

A printer can be used, black and white prints for free, color prints must be purchased.

The cost of work materials, transportation / travel expenses and food/household costs must be paid by the artists themselves. You need to buy all art materials yourself ( no stocks at the residency) best is to order them soon enough via internet and have it all delivered to the residency. D.B.A. can advice best price internet sites.

At the end of your stay, you will clean all the living and working space you used. If not, a cleaning-fee of 60 euros will be charged for the service.

Bedding, towels, kitchen towels are supplied, but you must do your own wash with the  washing machine in your kitchen.

The owner, D.B.A., can assist in establishing contacts with organizations for grants. For expos she each year applies for state allowances, though there is never a guarantee for those aids to come in.

Bourbonne Les Bains can be reached by public transport. 2 buses per day.

Advertising for Expo Opening Ceremonies will be paid by the owner. In critical financial situation advertising will be made throug social media, emails and word of mouth; if funds are available: in the local newspaper, by flyers  and posters.

All works created here belong to the artist, who must pay for transport home.

If an artwork is sold the artist gets the full amount.

At the opening parties,   better bring your own booze. If food is served at this opening parties (like oxtail soup, wild herb soup, calf’s head, wild boar feet, flambé kidneys etc.) it will be … mostly free.

To avoid any disappointed artists: To attract enough visitors for a decent party in the kind of semi-deserted place Bourbonne is, this enterprise needs time to spread and reveal its true fighting power. D.B.A.s private and solitary person, being outside a large social circle, might increase this risk.

The location:

52400 Bourbonne les Bains, Champagne-Ardenne, France

The healing powers of the waters of Bourbonne were known to the Romans and the Gauls before them, who had created a cult around the goddess Damona and the god Borvo. The Romans were the first to build spas here and strengthen the bond with the goddesses of the Gallic nature religion. The cult for the water gods Orvo/Orvonne /Damona /Borvo was central to the life of the community. The name of the city derives etymologically from this god of water. (Borvo / Bourbonne), as well as the name of the famous Bourbon royal family. Probably even the name of the Bourbon whisky, who knows?)

Bourbonne has a unique atmosphere. Stretching over several hills, this small provincial town with its virtually abandoned buildings, provides countless opportunities for reutilization and conversion. After the first expo ¨Departure and Arrrival ¨ (spring 2019), artists will be chosen for their interest and energy in projects that deal with water in the broadest sense (Nestlé owns many sources of water in the region) and/or with the decay of paid work (affecting the community of workers, small artisans and small shop tenders) behind the growing number of abandoned buildings throughout the city.

The landscape of Bourbonne Les Bains is very open, spacious, with a large forested area. Many small lakes and swamps provide a paradise for hikers, fishermen, and cyclists.

There is a casino, a commercial cinema, several restaurants (2 with a Gault Millau point), bars, shops of all kinds, 3 supermarkets, 1 hobby + wood market, 1 building materials market, 1 garden center, 2 pharmacies, a library, a castle where the Historical Museum is located (including an Isis brought by the Romans).

In winter there is a mysterious atmosphere, Bourbonne is dark, lonely, cold. To feel good, you better have a soft side for morbid charms.

There are several larger towns within a 1-hour drive of Bourbonne: Langres, Vittel, Contrexeville, Chaumont, Vesoul,

Between 1 and 2 hours: Epinal, Nancy, Dijon, Besançon,

Between 2 and 3 h: Mulhouse, Belfort, Strasbourg, Basel

Paris is a 3h drive, Zürich is a 3,5 h drive, Brussels is a 5h drive

Espace d’Art Contemporain Les Thermes , 4, Place des Bains, 52400 Bourbonne les Bains FR

This generous, beautiful house is financed through D.B.A.s pension fund capital, which she was allowed to use for this purpose after being accepted to be a social security-recognized, self-employed swiss artist. This spacious building with courtyard and large garden pavilion is becoming the body of a dream D.B.A. wants to share with many. (She can still stay nicely and privately on her side of the courtyard, as some village grannies like to do.)

D.B.A. wishes to develop her vision of the world and spread it with the big trowel, flood the greater region. It is desirable to connect with similar art spaces everywhere and nowhere. She could realize this idea somewhere in the world but her daughters and grandchildren are in Switzerland and better stay near the ones you love. D.B.A. was born and spent her childhood and youth in a water canton. The ancestors on her father’s side were Weidlingsbauer (riverbarge builders) in Stilli on the Aare. (On her mother’s side were small tenant farmers from the Emmenthal.) D.B.A. seems to feel especially comfortable in all types of floodplains, near rivers, streams and springs. Not to forget the waterfalls.

The first exhibition is about departure and arrival, resulting in solutions, promising beautiful métissage, in every sense.

The main building at right: