Waaw is an artist/volunteer run residency, situated right in the middle of the Saint-Louis island in the Senegal river. In Saint-Louis, the decay of the colonial town contrasts with the cultural expressions of modern West Africa.

We invite practitioners in all creative disciplines, as well as curators, journalists and researchers to take part in the sensory feast of Saint-Louis. This residency provides a rare opportunity of living and working fully in the present. Instead of using the picturesque environment as fodder for your social media feeds, we rather encourage you to go off-line to the extent possible, and see what processes this may generate for your artistic practice and beyond.

A stay at Waaw allows for individual work in a semi-secluded setting, but community-oriented projects are also possible. In our selection, we generally favour projects with relevance to the Senegalese context (see right). Maximum 6 artists will be working at Waaw at any one time. In relation to this call, we will select 4 artists.

Waaw provides individual or shared work space and some project assistance and mentoring, including assistance in establishing contacts locally. There is free wifi, but the connection is often rather poor and if you ever considered taking time off the net, this is a perfect opportunity. Accommodation is provided at a B&B run by a Senegalese family in a building at walking distance.

End-of-residency exhibitions or shows are welcome - but not obligatory. Please see the Waaw residency page (link on the right) for practical details on costs etc. We offer no grants, but selected candidates who have paid the registration fee will be issued a letter of support for seeking grants elsewhere.

We are now inviting artists for stays of 1 or 2 months in the spring of 2021. You can start your residency on 1 February or 1 March and end on 28 February or 31 March. Unfortunately, there is no flexibility as to the arrival dates as there will be an initial orientation programme. Please note that extensions before and after this period are not possible. If you want to stay on in town after March, we can help you find accommodation.

This residency period falls in the dry season. Expect afternoon temperatures between 25 and 30 degrees and night temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius.

To apply, send an informal letter to the address info(át)waawsenegal.org. Please  tell us why you would like to come to Waaw and what you would like to do during your residency. One A4 will do fine. Please answer these questions, attach a concise project plan, if relevant, and link to relevant work or documentation of it online. NB: We are not interested in detailed cv's or artist's statements. If you must attach files, please limit yourself to two single relevant works. Please make sure that your email message is not heavier than 10 MB - otherwise we may not be able to take your application into account. Thank you for your understanding.

We would like to hear from you by 20 August 2020 at the latest. The selection committee will announce its list of artists around 1 September.

Hope to see you at Waaw!