Room for Practice: Residency and Public Program

The genocide in Palestine, the war in Lebanon, and the ongoing violence across the region have cast a deep shadow over our collective imagination and narrowed our sense of possibility. In this context, Room for Practice emerges as a space for reimagining what is possible: a site where new ways of being with, thinking with, and creating with one another can take root.
 
Unfolding within Beirut Art Center’s small gallery, Room for Practice is at once an artist residency and an evolving public program. It is a dynamic, hybrid site that welcomes practitioners from a wide range of disciplines — art, poetry, anthropology, psychoanalysis, journalism, pedagogy, natural sciences, and beyond — offering a space to nurture their practices in relation to one another, not in isolation. 
 
This is not a conventional residency space. Residents are invited to activate the space through collaborative, experimental, and participatory gestures. These may take the form of workshops, performances, screenings, gatherings, conversations, or spontaneous interventions. Their contributions form the heartbeat of Room for Practice’s public program, a program built by those who inhabit the space.
At a time when borders are multiplying and hardening, Room for Practice resists rigid roles and categories and proposes a soft undoing. It offers a site for gathering, a ground for shared experimentation, and for rehearsing new forms of relation and making. Through this process, it hopes to open new portals of possibility, where future visions, tools, and languages can emerge in response to the urgencies of this moment.

Open to both residents and the public, Room for Practice invites encounters. Visitors are welcome to work, explore, propose ideas, participate, or simply linger with and alongside residents. It is a place for curiosity and for new connections to emerge. Neighbors, passersby, friends, and strangers alike are invited to take part in this collective journey toward co-creation, common ground, and the cultivation of togetherness.
 
Program Duration

January—April 2026


The program runs for four months and includes both a residency and a public program. Selected residents will be invited to develop their work individually and collaboratively, while contributing to public-facing activities throughout the period.

Residency Eligibility
We welcome applications from individuals or collectives fully based in Lebanon and working in creative, research-based, and socially engaged practices. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Artists working across performance, sound, visual, media, and multidisciplinary forms
• Writers and Poets
• Cultural workers and educators
• Researchers in fields such as anthropology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, critical pedagogy, and the social sciences/humanities
• Practitioners working at the intersections of art and other fields (e.g., urbanism, ecology, journalism, design)
• Social scientists and activists

What Residents Receive:
– A dedicated desk within the shared space
– Time to nurture your practice
– Opportunities to collaborate with other residents
– Space and resources to experiment with public engagement
– Access to Beirut Art Center’s equipment and facilities (projectors, speakers, auditorium, etc.)
– A stipend to cover transportation costs and basic equipment
 
Application Guidelines
To apply, please fill out this form and make sure to attach your CV or portfolio (up to 4 works).
Deadline for submission: November 14, 2025.
 
Selection Process
Residents will be selected by a multi-disciplinary jury based on the strength of their practice, interest in collaborative and participatory gestures, and potential contribution to the life of the space.