Group Residency Programme, Orkney: Wandering Rocks and Earthy Matters

Sat 29th August – Sat 5th Sept 2026

Address: Palace Village, Birsay, Orkney KW17 2LX

Application Deadline: Sun 01 March 2026

WANDERING ROCKS and EARTHY MATTERS has been devised around the relationships of ‘Air, Sea and Soil’, encompassing the Orkney Islands’ remarkable natural environment. Residents will be welcomed to the ancient Birsay area of Orkney, where the bespoke programme will take place through visits to Neolithic Orkney’s World Heritage Sites, and will include 5-star accommodation and work facilities.

The Group Residency will be lead by Tracy Mackenna (she/her), artist, educator and curator of The Museum of Loss and Renewal and facilitated by Tracy and artist Mary Bourne. A range of multidisciplinary Orkney-based discipline experts who hold precious, lived knowledge of how matter and materials act in Orkney will contribute to bespoke programme sessions, sharing their understandings of the relationships between rock, water and soil, people and time, the natural and built environment, creative expression and well-being.

This Group Residency will take you out and about in Orkney, allow you to focus, introduce you to the impact of climate crisis, to vast skies, open vistas and the archipelago that has long been shaped by the sea. You will get up close to places, matter and materials and ideas, and step back to consider your position in the universe.

AIM

The Group Residency will develop approaches to matter and material that are experimental, inventive in their form, and that respond to place by paying attention to the intersections and collisions between art, culture, technologies and place. Individual experience will be regarded as being not at the world’s centre, but woven into its fabric.

Orkney is famous for its unique geology featuring spectacular sandstone forms in breathtaking dramatic cliffs, rich fossil beds containing for example fish from ancient Lake Orcadie, and unique landforms like geos and gloups that have come into being from Devonian desert environments and subsequent glaciation. The practical and socio-political uses of stone will be encountered in the islands’ world famous Neolithic structures such as the 500 year-old village of Skara Brae, dry-stone walls and boundaries, chambered cairns, quernstones, touchstones and harbours.

Opportunities are created for participants to share and establish a bank of knowledge and creative strategies, both globally interconnected and hyper local, digital and analogue, for imagining new responses to matter and materials and the multiple, layered and contested histories that places hold. Bringing together residents from a range of areas of practice and research, an international network will be established.

Disciplines

WANDERING ROCKS and EARTHY MATTERS is offered to creative practitioners working in all creative disciplines and for those who have a strong interest in the investigation of matter and materials, site and place. The group will comprise of approx. eight international participants.

Accommodation

The residency programme will take place in the ancient and historic village of The Palace, in the parish of Birsay. It is situated on the St Magnus Way pilgrimage route on the Atlantic Ocean and amidst farmlands and sites of archaeological, historical and social importance in Orkney, accessible by foot and minivan.

Accommodation is 5-star self-catering (single rooms) and is fully equipped, including wifi.

Workspace

Work spaces are shared and include ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ spaces.

Fees and Support

The Residency Programme is operated on a non-commercial cost-covering basis, and is financially supported by The Museum of Loss and Renewal in order to keep fees low. The residency fee is £1350 GBP, paid by the resident. It includes the residency programme, 5-star self-catering accommodation (single rooms) and work spaces, collection/return to nearest airport/ferry point.

A deposit of 50% is payable within three weeks of being offered a place on the residency programme (non-refundable). The remaining balance is payable eight weeks in advance of the residency start date. In the event that cancellation is required, residents may cancel up to a minimum of six weeks prior to their residency start date. If a resident has to end the residency early due to personal circumstances, a refund cannot not be issued.

You will be responsible for funding and organising your own travel, your own insurances and any visa requirements particular to your country of origin. Travel information will be supplied (Kirkwall Airport and Orkney Ferries), and collection/drop-off at the beginning and end of the Group Residency will be arranged.

We do not have external funding for this project, so regret that we are unable to offer assistance with fees, travel, production costs or other subsistence. Typically, successful applicants source funding by applying to their national arts funding bodies, personal fundraising, or through academic institutional support. Formal Letters of Invitation can be provided to assist in this process.We do not have external funding for this project, so regret that we are unable to offer assistance with fees, travel, production costs or other subsistence. Typically, successful applicants source funding by applying to their national arts funding bodies, personal fundraising, or through academic institutional support. Formal Letters of Invitation can be provided to assist in this process.