We welcome international and interdisciplinary residents and guests who wish to experiment with circular materials and handicraft methods, engage with the unique geopolitical position of Valga, do some thematic mental exercises and contribute to creating inspiring alternative spatial experiences for oneself as well as the community.
We are announcing the open call for 2024 residents in fall 2023. Residents will be welcome from February 2024. The length of the residency period is regularly around one month. We are also able to offer a small stipend to each resident. The residency period should involve or culminate with a public event of some kind: exhibition, lecture, open studio, opening of an installation or something similar.
Residents are encouraged to use the building of VARES as a research object and environment to develop during the residency, but also to engage with the urban and rural spaces and communities in and around Valga.
In short, we welcome:
→ both practitioners and theorists
→ people working both individually as well as collectively
→ especially people from the Baltic and Nordic regions, but also elsewhere in the world
→ also professional collectives who wish to use the space for a conference or workshop of their own
In addition to the regular residency programme, which will involve a number of public events, VARES will be hosting winter and summer schools and university courses for spatial design students.
In 2024, we will also organise a thematic intensive residency entitled “Sketchy materials wasteland” for a group of different residents. A separate open call is organised for this.
Information about all open calls and public events will be available on our Instagram, Facebook and newsletter.
VARES is part of the main programme of Tartu 2024 “Arts of Survival” European Capital of Culture.
Q: What are the accommodation and living conditions at VARES like?
A: VARES has a functioning kitchen and washing facilities, one properly furnished bedroom and resources for a larger number of sleeping places, including for babies and children.
The residency is located at Uus 35 in Valga. There are many shops and food establishments nearby. The building is 5 minutes by foot from the Valga town centre. The residency offers a couple of bikes as means of transport around the town and additional engine assistance can be arranged (vans, cars etc.).
The building has two floors with seven rooms on each of them. The whole house is heated with stoves, which is something the resident will have to engage with also themself (at least partly). During colder seasons, the house is going to shrink, meaning we will only use the rooms which we can keep warm.
There is no one permanently staying at VARES, and we also don’t have a specialised house manager. Anyone staying at VARES should allocate at least an hour of their day to care for the household, since domesticating it is the collective handwork of all of us.
Q: Why make an architecture residency in Valga? How do I get there?
A: A part of our team was co-organising the large international alternative architecture education summer school EASA Apathy in 2020. In 2023, thanks to the Valga municipality’s architect Jiri Tintera and the South Estonian programme of Tartu 2024 Capital of Culture, we got the opportunity to establish a spatial arts residency into an old schoolhouse previously inhabited by Valga Distance Learning High School.
Valga is the southernmost town of Estonia with 12 000 inhabitants, located on the border – just 400 meters from VARES, you can step into the Latvian town of Valka and wander around the exciting contemporary twin city urban space created in the past few years. On the one hand, Valga is a typical Eastern European industrial town with a decreasing population, where many abandoned and decaying structures are awaiting their fate. On the other hand, the multinational, human-scale, self-initiated atmosphere of Valga makes for an inspiring context to experiment with the urgent topics of today – degrowth, recycling and survival skills.
You can get to Valga with a train or a bus from:
→ Tallinn (~4h) (Elron / Tpilet)
→ Tartu (~1h) (Elron / Tpilet)
→ Riga (~3h) (Lux Express / Pasažieru Vilciens)
Nearest international airports to Valga:
→ Tallinn Lennart Meri Airport
→ Riga Airport
→ Helsinki Airport (you could take a ferry to Tallinn)