Artist Residencies in Senegal
A curated guide to residency programs, production spaces, and research-based initiatives supporting contemporary art in Senegal.
In Senegal, the residency question is closely tied to the country’s position as a long-standing West African point of exchange, where artistic production often moves between studio practice, public debate, and regional mobility. The strongest concentration of artist residencies in Senegal is naturally around Dakar, not only because of its institutions and galleries, but because the city offers a dense field of curators, artists, workshops, collectives, and biennial-related encounters. Within this context, residency programs in Senegal tend to operate less as isolated retreats than as working structures connected to research, conversation, and the making of new work in relation to place.
Contemporary art residencies in Senegal often gain their relevance through proximity to broader cultural infrastructure: institutions in Senegal, independent spaces, studios, and informal networks that support artists working in residence before, during, and after public presentation. The ecosystem is not only institutional; it also depends on slower forms of exchange, including mentorship, open studios, community engagement, and site-specific research shaped by urban and coastal environments. This gives artist residencies in Senegal a particular identity within the region: they are linked to international circulation, but they also remain grounded in questions of material conditions, postcolonial memory, local audiences, and artistic production across West Africa. Rather than functioning simply as application-based programs, the most meaningful residencies here act as temporary infrastructures for experimentation, allowing artists, curators, and researchers to test work within a scene where mobility and locality remain closely intertwined.
Selected Artist Residencies in Senegal
A curated selection of residency programs supporting contemporary art production, research, and international exchange.
Black Rock Senegal
Black Rock Senegal is a multidisciplinary artist-in-residence program in Dakar founded by Kehinde Wiley. It supports artists working across visual art, film, writing, and related practices through studio time, living space, and sustained exchange with Senegal’s cultural context. The program matters because it connects Dakar’s contemporary art ecosystem with a highly visible international network of artists and curators.
Its relevance lies in linking Dakar’s production conditions with a global residency circuit attentive to Africa and the diaspora.
Thread
Thread is an artist residency and cultural center in Sinthian, developed through the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Le Korsa. It hosts local and international artists in a rural village setting with studio space and community-facing activity. Its importance comes from combining contemporary artistic production with social infrastructure, architectural specificity, and sustained cultural exchange outside Dakar.
Thread expands Senegal’s residency map beyond the capital, making rural context central to artistic research and community encounter.
Villa Saint-Louis Ndar
Villa Saint-Louis Ndar is a residency for artists, researchers, writers, and cultural practitioners based in Saint-Louis. Connected to the French cultural cooperation network, it supports research and creation in relation to a historically layered coastal city. For Senegal’s contemporary art ecosystem, the residency adds an institutional framework outside Dakar, linking artistic mobility with heritage, research, and public cultural exchange.
It gives Saint-Louis a structured residency role, connecting contemporary creation with historical context and transnational cultural cooperation.
Selebe Yoon Residency
Selebe Yoon Residency operates within Selebe Yoon, a Dakar contemporary art gallery and residency structure supporting national and international artists and curators. Its program includes production residencies for commissioned projects and research residencies rooted in the Senegalese context. The residency contributes to Dakar’s ecosystem by linking exhibition-making, studio support, curatorial inquiry, and public-facing exchange.
It strengthens Dakar’s gallery-residency infrastructure by connecting contemporary production, research, and international curatorial circulation within one site.
Kër Thiossane
Kër Thiossane is a Dakar-based space for research, residence, creation, and training dedicated to artistic and social innovation. Its activity focuses on art, new technologies, open culture, and community-based experimentation. Through residencies, workshops, exhibitions, and the Afropixel ecosystem, it has shaped an important framework for digital and cross-disciplinary artistic practice in Senegal.
Its importance lies in connecting residency practice with digital art, civic imagination, open-source culture, and neighborhood-based experimentation.
This is a curated selection of residency programs. Explore the broader contemporary art ecosystem of Senegal.
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