Residencies
We're pleased to offer a wonderful opportunity for a visual residency in Prato, Italy - a collaboration between Monash Art, Design & Architecture and the Monash University Prato Campus (MUPC).
Italy is renowned for the richness of its art, design and architecture. Our visual residency program gives Australian creative practitioners the chance to engage with this culture.
Each year, we offer an established or emerging Australian creative practitioner the opportunity to spend three months in Prato to undertake a new project or enquiry that relates to the local context.
The MUPC Visual Residency Program encourages international engagement, through contemporary art practice and research, and offers a broad range of activities for inspiration, education and professional development.
Aims of the program
As the artist-in-residence, you'll engage with Monash students during their semester program in Prato, generally from September to November, giving them the opportunity to learn from a current creative practitioner. You'll also share your work with the general public.
- provide opportunities for creative practitioners to sustain and deepen their practice and research
- offer and encourage engagement with institutions and industry in Prato
- provide access to significant collections, exhibitions, colleagues and practitioners in Europe
- encourage independent artistic thinking, experimentation and practice
The Monash University Prato Campus
MUPC is located in the 18th century Palazzo Vai, in Tuscany, just outside Florence, where it provides a strategic base for research and engagement in Europe.
Prato is an interesting location from the perspective of migration studies, cultural studies, inter-cultural communication, and historic and contemporary economic relations and interactions.
It’s home to the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art, the Textile Museum, Renaissance art collections, and it is close to Fattoria Celle in Pistoia, home of the important Gori Collection of site-specific contemporary artworks.
And Prato’s proximity to Tuscan historic sites such as Siena and Pisa (Medieval religious, intellectual, educational and arts centres) and Florence (Renaissance economic, religious, intellectual and arts centre) adds potential for visual research.
The 2026 Visual Residency Program is supported by the Australian Multicultural Foundation.
