Bodhi Khaya Artist Residency

A two-week residency where making becomes a mode of thinking.

Artists work intensively with site, material, and process—developing ideas through doing rather than pre-definition.

The residency marks the beginning of ongoing curatorial support, exhibitions, and international opportunities.

Applications open in May (R250 application fee). The call is announced on our social media, or you can email us to be added to the mailing list.

Bodhi Khaya Artist Residency is an annual two-weeks-in-October, funded residency created by artists, for artists. Founded in 2021, it emerged from a simple recognition: that there are very few spaces in South Africa where artists are given the time, support, and conditions to work seriously and develop their practice.

The residency offers emerging and mid-career artists the rare gift of time—time to step away from the demands of everyday life and immerse themselves in making. It is not a retreat, but a focused, practice-led environment where artists work intensively, engage in dialogue, and deepen their relationship to their work and to each other.

At its core, the residency centres on making as a primary mode of thinking. Artists are invited to work directly with site, material, and process—allowing ideas to emerge through experimentation, exchange, and sustained engagement. Working across disciplines—visual art, performance, sound, movement and installation—participants respond to place through historical, political, ecological and personal perspectives. What emerges may be ephemeral or tangible, but always seeks to make our relationship to the world visible, audible, and felt.

Set within a unique landscape of forests, fynbos, and regenerative land, the residency offers a context where the environment itself becomes a collaborator. Artists engage with the land not as backdrop, but as an active presence—shaping process, questioning assumptions, and opening new ways of thinking and making.

The programme is run entirely by artists on a voluntary basis and sustained through a combination of partnerships, and a modest application fee.

What has become increasingly central is what happens beyond the residency. Artists remain connected through ongoing curatorial support, exhibitions, and guidance towards further opportunities, including international residencies and exhibition platforms. The residency is therefore not a singular event, but the beginning of an extended trajectory—supporting artists as they develop their work, visibility, and professional pathways over time.

Through this, Bodhi Khaya Residency operates as a space of exchange, experimentation, and development—holding a balance between artistic depth and professional growth, and contributing to a wider ecology of contemporary art practice in South Africa.