A residency programme and a year's anthology of relational practices, curated and held by artist Tessa Wills, director of Thrive. Thrive would like to invite artists for a paid residency looking at kin-making practices in a hyper-local way. We will offer space and time for refuge and reflection here on the Somerset Levels, to develop creative practices which help shore up the kinds of relationships we need right now as systems fail around us. Thrive is an organisation operating from a specific piece of land near Glastonbury in the Somerset Levels. Thrive works through art and psychotherapy to trouble and practice the phenomenon of belonging.

A Good Enough Net

Thrive is offering 6 individual paid residencies on the land, each lasting 5 to 7 days. Each selected artist will receive a flat fee of £750.

You can select which week and number of days from the following time periods between January and August 2027:

11/1/27 – 5/2/27

22/2/27 – 21/3/27

12/4/27 – 7/5/27

17/5/27 – 21/5/27

7/6/27 – 16/7/27

16/8/27 – 27/8/27

In addition to the £750 fee you receive, we also cover the following expenses.

You can choose from one of the following options: 

Option 1: Onsite accommodation

Accommodation: Free for the artist for up to 6 nights 

Food: Breakfast (toast/cereal/hot drink) and communal dinner/hot meal provided each day for free

Travel support: £100 for all residency travel

Option 2: Offsite accommodation

Accommodation: £400 for residency period

Food: £100 for residency period

Travel support: £100 for all residency travel

Also included will be some peer mentorship, space and time to think, access to the land and the nature reserve, a bike to borrow during your stay and a small budget towards materials if required.

Curatorial statement and invitation 

At this point, we humans operate in systems of care where a tiny number of people do an enormous amount of love and labour necessary for survival, bridging the gaps where systems fail.

The nuclear family can’t hold everything we ask of it, and the broader social, environmental, educational, political systems we were told would catch us are collapsing, being dismantled, or never held us in the first place.

The children still need feeding. The rivers are changing. We’re still working out how to love one another.

So: a net that’s good enough. Full of holes, always needing mending, something you can climb into or out of. I want to practise making it with you, and living with its gaps, and with the fear that nothing might catch us.

The invitation is to choose a relationship you want to begin, deepen, change or experiment with. Thrive can help with introductions. A week can start something, but maybe not finish it. Maybe you take it away. Maybe you leave it with the other party.

I’m interested in art that does something to a relationship, not just depicts it.

That may mean refusal, awkwardness or failure alongside pleasure and surprise. Maybe the main thing we need is the capacity to sit with the disappointment of relationships and love life anyway.

I’d rather stay with that trouble than tidy it away. Play is welcome, and I’d love it if someone laughed.

This is a shopping list of ideas to inspire, a flurry, a murmur, which I offer as a starting place. Take what you like, cross out what you don't, add your own.

• time (how long to build relationships you want? how long to break it?)
  
  
• feeling safe where you have a right to be somewhere friendly somewhere hostile, or both
  
  
• the gap between one set of systems failing and the next growing (sitting in it, not rushing to fill it)
  
  
• what children know about trust and play (ask them)
  
  
• digging, planting, tending (useful art)
  
  
• a village our village, playing together: a fete, a feud, a football match, a bake-off that goes too far
  
  
• the relationship you've wanted and never known how to begin
  
  
• goats, foxes, swans, starlings, rats, faeries, water, and how they play
  
  
• words (the tricky ones): family, collective, structures, crumbling
  
  
• something sensible, something ridiculous
  
  
• anything we've forgotten:         

The collective artwork — an anthology of relational practices

Each artist will be invited to contribute a trace of their residency to a collective zine.

This might take the form of images, writing, instructions, reflections or something else entirely. We're interested in what you tried, what you discovered and what remains unresolved.

Bringing together contributions from artists who may never meet, the zine will become a collective artwork: a field guide to kin making, offering ideas and practices that others might try, adapt or make their own.

The zine will be shared locally and may travel further through talks, exhibitions and events.

Reflection and evaluation

As part of the programme, we're interested in learning about what happens when artists are given time and space to experiment with relationships, belonging and place.

We'll invite artists to complete short questionnaires before and after their residency, exploring their experiences of belonging, wellbeing, nature connection and artistic development.

We'll also invite you to keep a simple photographic diary and take part in a short reflective conversation about your experience.

This isn't about measuring artistic success or expecting particular outcomes.

We're just as interested in the unexpected, unfinished or challenging aspects of the work as we are in what flourishes.

Your reflections will help us learn from the programme and shape how Thrive supports artists in the future.

Any Questions before you apply?

For queries regarding the residency, timeframes and general enquiries please econtact Jess; Creative Producer. 

To have a longer chat about concepts, you can book in a chat with Tessa. 

Please contact either through the 'Contact curator' tab.