Special Themed Residency Programs

My First Arquetopia Residency is a 2-week introductory program designed exclusively for applicants ages 20 to 25 who are beginning, rethinking, or formalizing their artistic practice. It is conceived for emerging or first-time residents who wish to define or re-frame the foundations of their work through contextual immersion and guided observation. Rather than assuming that a practice is already formed, the program treats the act of beginning as a conceptual, ethical, and material problem: to locate where one is speaking from, to identify what one is reproducing or resisting, and to understand how one’s work participates in broader historical, social, and institutional narratives. Throughout the residency, participants move between close looking and collective discussion, between the museum and the street, and between archival knowledge and lived environments in Puebla, in order to sharpen their sense of intention, method, and responsibility within their future work.

Taking place in Puebla between March and July, the residency is intentionally scheduled during the academic recesses of the year —specifically spring break and summer break— to allow young students and early-stage practitioners to pursue an international residency experience in Mexico without interrupting their formal studies. Over the course of two weeks, participants engage closely with local museum collections, develop critical reflection through weekly meetings, and undertake structured field visits that situate artistic practice within broader social, historical, and material frameworks. This design enables students to experience a rigorously mentored residency abroad at a formative moment in their training, translating academic curiosity into lived, contextualized research outside the classroom.

Guided by one of these three thematic axes —gender, landscape, museums and collections— participants will work through a schedule that blends study, observation, and dialogue. The program includes guided visits to key institutional collections such as Museo Bello, Museo de la Revolución, Museo del Alfeñique, and the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, alongside different on-site visits that examine how place, power, and narrative intersect in public and institutional space.

Total hour activities include in-situ class (4 hours), individual mentoring sessions (2 hours), collection visits (4 hours), academic visits (5 hours), plus individual studio hours, offering a structured yet reflective framework for participants to articulate the conceptual, ethical, and methodological pillars of their work.

The strengths of the program lie in its active engagement with museum holdings, its critical pedagogical approach, and its focus on observation as an artistic and ethical method, providing a grounded, mentored point of departure for those beginning a sustained creative trajectory.

PROGRAM ACTIVITIES

Week 1

• Arrival and Mapping: Orientation and contextual mapping of the cultural ecosystem.
• Academic Visits: Guided explorations introducing historical and contemporary perspectives.
• Mentoring: Individualized sessions connecting practice to local knowledge.
• In-Situ Class: class conducted directly within a relevant historical or cultural site to learn from the context itself
• Collection Visits: Guided sessions inside museum or archival collections to observe, analyze, and contextualize objects in situ.

Week 2

• Studio Work: Time dedicated to advancing participants’ projects while engaging with critical perspectives.
• Academic Visits: Further contextual encounters with local institutions and knowledge bearers.
• Mentoring: Individualized sessions connecting practice to local knowledge.
• In-Situ Class: class conducted directly within a relevant historical or cultural site to learn from the context itself
• Collection Visits: Guided sessions inside museum or archival collections to observe, analyze, and contextualize objects in situ.

COMMUNITY COMPONENT
The Community Component runs across both weeks through direct encounters with the cultural ecosystem of Puebla — not only through formal institutions but through the people, spaces, and practices that animate them. Orientation and mapping ground participants in the living networks that sustain the city’s heritage; academic visits and in-situ classes place residents inside churches, archives, and historical sites where meaning is produced in relation to place; mentoring sessions introduce Arquetopia’s critical artistic methodology, linking this framework to what participants are encountering in context; and collection visits help participants to read museum and archival holdings as narratives of power and as technologies of seeing, not as neutral displays. Rather than treating community as an external category or outreach activity, the program stages community as an epistemic condition of practice: to learn is to enter a world already shaped by others.

Duration: 2 weeks
Minimum: 2 participants

Staff Support:

• Each resident artist meets weekly with our directorial and curatorial staff for personalized mentoring, research resources, project guidance, and critique.

Accommodation:

• Furnished, private bedroom
• 24-hour access to the kitchen for participants to prepare their own meals; meals/food are the participants' responsibility
• Wireless Internet
• Use of Arquetopia’s common spaces including outdoor terraces
• Shared, serviced (single) bathrooms with modern fixtures and showers
• Housekeeping

Studio Workspace:

• 24-hour access to large and bright, shared art studio with generous natural light
• Personal workspace with large table and wall space

DURATION / TIME PERIOD 
Sessions are 2 weeks. Dates are not predetermined but are proposed by the applying artist.

2. IMMERSIVE LEARNING PROGRAM #1:
Day of the Dead: Speaking, Tasting, Creating
Arquetopia Location: Oaxaca, Mexico
Duration: 2 weeks – Program Dates:
October 26 to November 9, 2026

Why is the concept of death so integral to our understanding of collective experience? Across centuries, death has shaped social bonds, ritual knowledge, and the ways we process the fragility of life. In Mexico, the annual celebrations of Day of the Dead at the end of October and the beginning of November mark the closing of the maize cultivation cycle, and symbolically welcome the temporary return of deceased relatives and beloved individuals to Earth.

In Oaxaca, Day of the Dead is not only a commemorative act—it is a living dialogue between memory, food, land, and community. One of the most intimate dimensions of this celebration occurs in kitchens and communal ovens: the making of the Pan de Muerto, a Day of the Dead bread that combines ancestral knowledge, embodied technique, and symbolic language, where every gesture—from preparing the masa to tracing bone-shaped designs—carries memory.

The Immersive Learning Program: Day of the Dead focuses on the significance of Day of the Dead as a cornerstone of national identity rooted in Indigenous wisdom, tracing its influence on the development of Mexican modern art, and exploring its transformation into a secular and popular symbol. The program examines the performative nature of ritual, with special attention to mortuary celebrations and the relationship between food, offering, and remembrance. Within the context of this national holiday, participants will engage in practical Spanish language lessons, culinary exploration, and hands-on learning, fostering a multidisciplinary approach that integrates foodways, art creation, and linguistic practice. The program prompts critical inquiry into concepts of eternity, nationalism, and identity, questioning the use of death as a national symbol while unpacking its representation as a melancholic or morbid aspect of identity construction.

At the heart of the Oaxaca program is an embodied learning experience through the traditional preparation of Pan de Muerto. Participants will work alongside master bakers who pass on the knowledge of preparing dough, shaping symbolic forms, creating edible designs that evoke bones and tears (huesitos and lágrimas), and understanding the ingredients that anchor the bread to the land: milled wheat, native maize, anise, orange blossom, and the warmth of communal ovens. The process becomes an experimentation of sensory language—where aroma, texture, and form speak to a system of values around hospitality, absence, and remembrance. Through this perspective, food moves beyond sustenance and becomes a cultural document, a trace of cosmology shaped through flour, fire, and memory.

The Arquetopia Immersive Learning Program: Day of the Dead is a 2-week intensive experience designed to provide competitive professional opportunities for emerging and mid-career artists, curators, art historians, and students aged 20 and above from around the world. This distinctive program offers critical perspectives on the representation of death in Mexico as a foundational element of national identity. By examining the mythologies surrounding its origins and their reinterpretation over time, the program equips participants with analytical tools to understand the performative nature of Day of the Dead rituals, engaging with emotional portrayals, food as ephemeral art, material culture, and the evolving historical significance of death in the construction of identity. Participants will contextualize their own practices by learning bread making as a form of ephemeral art directly linked to the creation of ofrendas (altars), a central element of Day of the Dead celebrations in Oaxaca.

PROGRAM INCLUSIONS
This 2-week program includes 8 hours of instruction in ephemeral Day of the Dead culinary art techniques, including the preparation of Pan de Muerto, symbolic design elements, and the edible dimension of the altar. Participants will have the opportunity to join guided visits to traditional bakeries, communal ovens, markets, and local altars. Alongside these artistic and culinary endeavors, attendees will engage in 12 hours of Spanish language lessons, divided into 6 hours of grammar and 6 hours of immersive on-site language practice. They will embark on food tours (4 hours total) to explore the regional culinary landscape and spend 6 hours on academic visits to museums, cemeteries, and relevant cultural sites. Participants will also benefit from 2 hours of artistic mentoring sessions.

All activities are designed to promote intensive creative work and critical dialogue; therefore, participants are expected to dedicate self-directed hours to developing their artistic or research projects. Reading materials are provided in English, and workshop instruction is in Spanish.

• Each resident artist meets weekly with our directorial and curatorial staff for personalized mentoring, research assistance/resources, project guidance, and critique

Studio Workspace:

• 24-hour access to shared studio
• Personal workspace with large table
• Some tools provided
• Materials and supplies for the instructional course provided
• Materials and supplies for extended project production are not included but are available for purchase locally

DURATION / TIME PERIOD 
Session is 2 weeks, October 26 to November 9, 2026.

PROGRAM TUITION INFO & APPLICATION DEADLINES
E-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for tuition info and application deadlines for this program.

TO APPLY
Click here to apply for this instructional program.