Designed by Casa de Velázquez, Villa Kujoyama and the Academie de France in Rome – Villa Medici, the festival ¡ Viva Villa ! was born of a common desire to create with the French public a regular meeting bringing together the artists and researchers we welcome during the year in these institutions located in Madrid, Kyoto or Rome.
The ambition of the project launched in 2016 is not only to restore in France the work and research of artists in residences but also to offer them the possibility of a generational platform.
The vocation of our institutions is to offer what is most often lacking in creation: the time and a framework of work proposed to artists so that they can, by travelling bypass, open new avenues of research and ultimately discover new horizons.
We offer them the opportunity to meet in the diversity of their disciplines by crossing their reflections, even confronting them, to develop projects that evolve in a climate where the collective nourishes the individual approach.
¡ Viva Villa ! also wishes to establish connections with all the initiatives that are expressed in the regions that host it: other residences both public and private, the FRAC, local institutions, galleries, former residents, French artists …
The artist needs an audience to make his work exist. ¡Viva Villa! is a showcase for post-residency work and a network that is both solid and at the service of everyone’s career.
If ¡ Viva Villa ! is an appointment with the most contemporary creation of our French institutions, it is also a place of reflection where the interest of the residences abroad, the stakes and realities of the contemporary artistic creation, the immersive experience of the residence are described and questioned with our artists, art professionals and the public.
Michel Bertrand, director of Casa de Velázquez
Charlotte Fouchet-Ishii, Deputy Director of Villa Kujoyama
Stéphane Gaillard, Secretary General and Acting Director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici
