Artist Residencies in Switzerland
A curated guide to residency programs, production spaces, and research-based initiatives supporting contemporary art in Switzerland.
In Switzerland, artist residencies are closely tied to a cultural infrastructure shaped by public funding, foundations, artist-run spaces, and strong institutional networks rather than by a single dominant center. Residency programs in Switzerland often operate between production support and research, giving artists time, studio access, and proximity to curators, universities, museums, and independent spaces. The landscape is distributed: Zurich and Basel connect residencies to galleries, museums, collections, and international art circuits, while Geneva, Lausanne, and smaller towns support more discursive, cross-disciplinary, and site-responsive practices. This creates a residency ecology where contemporary art production in Switzerland is not only urban but also regional, often moving between studio work, public programs, open studios, and institutional collaboration.
Contemporary art residencies in Switzerland tend to privilege precision, research, and exchange over spectacle. International artist residency programs are frequently embedded within broader systems of mobility, allowing artists, curators, and researchers to develop projects in dialogue with Swiss cultural institutions, local communities, and transnational networks. The country’s scale makes this ecosystem unusually interconnected: artists working in residence can move between experimental spaces, academic contexts, and contemporary art institutions in Switzerland without leaving the same national framework. At the same time, the residency field remains distinct from the gallery market, even when it overlaps with it through exhibitions or open studios. For artist residencies in Switzerland, the central question is often not visibility alone, but how time, infrastructure, and critical proximity can support sustained artistic research.
Selected Artist Residencies in Switzerland
A curated selection of residency programs supporting contemporary art production, research, and international exchange.
La Becque Artist Residency
La Becque is an artist residency on Lake Geneva supporting Swiss and international practitioners across visual art, media, writing, curation, sound, and interdisciplinary fields. Its principal program emphasizes research and reflection rather than finished production, with projects often engaging relations between nature, environment, and technology through residencies, public exchanges, open studios, and institutional partnerships.
It gives Switzerland a focused research residency model where ecological, technological, and post-disciplinary practices can develop outside conventional exhibition pressure.
Atelier Mondial
Atelier Mondial is an international studio and exchange program based in the Basel region, hosting guest artists selected through partner institutions abroad. Residents live and work in its studios for several months, with access to Salon Mondial, open-studio formats, local institutional networks, and a framework that connects Basel’s contemporary art infrastructure to long-term international artistic mobility.
It is one of Switzerland’s clearest residency infrastructures for reciprocal exchange, linking Basel’s institutional density with partner networks across continents.
Villa Sträuli Artist-in-Residence Program
Villa Sträuli runs an international artist-in-residence program inside a cultural house in Winterthur, supporting artists and curators through project assistance, networking, presentation opportunities, and integration into its public cultural program. Its cross-disciplinary model includes visual artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, and curators, making it a useful bridge between local cultural mediation and international artistic exchange.
It contributes a flexible, publicly engaged residency model where production, mediation, and intercultural dialogue meet within the Greater Zurich region.
Ferme-Asile International Residency
Ferme-Asile’s international residency invites professional visual artists living outside Switzerland to work in Sion for a focused period of research and production. Embedded in a multidisciplinary art center with exhibition spaces, studios, mediation programs, and regional cultural partners, the residency connects artists to Valais while concluding with public-facing formats such as open studios, outdoor projects, screenings, or performances.
It anchors contemporary art residency activity in Valais, extending Switzerland’s residency ecosystem beyond the larger urban and market-oriented centers.
Embassy of Foreign Artists
Embassy of Foreign Artists is a Geneva-based international residency program welcoming artists, cultural actors, researchers, and collectives with logistical and financial support. Its recent Art and Science cycle connects artistic research with laboratories and academic partners, positioning residency time as a framework for cross-disciplinary production, collaboration, and dissemination within Geneva’s unusually dense scientific and diplomatic environment.
It brings Geneva’s research institutions into the residency field, making art-science exchange part of Switzerland’s contemporary art infrastructure.
Stiftung BINZ39 Atelier Residency
Stiftung BINZ39’s Atelier Residency provides seven working studios in Zurich for Swiss visual artists at an early or decisive stage of their careers. The two-year format is not residential housing, but it offers sustained studio time, mentoring, open-studio events, curatorial support, a final exhibition, and access to the foundation’s local network and infrastructure.
Its long studio cycle supports artistic development inside Zurich, foregrounding continuity and peer exchange over short-term mobility within the local art ecosystem.
This is a curated selection of residency programs. Explore the broader contemporary art ecosystem of Switzerland.
Back to Switzerland overview