DEADLINE: MONDAY 26 OCTOBER 2026, 3:00PM (GMT+2)

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For Finland-based artists and arts practitioners only.

FELLOWSHIP PERIOD

12 April 2027 – 9 April 2028 (12 months)

FELLOWSHIP CONDITIONS

• Working grant of €1350 per month (€16 200 in total) via Kone Foundation
• Access budget up to €1000 (see further details under ‘Accessibility’)
• Residency accommodation and workspace provided at HIAP Suomenlinna (see further details under ‘About the Residencies’)
• Research budget of €2000

ABOUT LEARNING MATERIALS

Learning Materials is a collaborative project by Bioart Society, HIAP Helsinki International Artist Programme, Koynẽ Program, and TUO TUO, together with partners FIBRA, LABVA, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, and SWAMP: Art Material Swap and Waste Management Point. The project is supported by Kone Foundation. 

The project partners invite applications for a 12 month fellowship focused on socially engaged, process-orientated and material-driven practices. Two fellows will be selected. 

Learning Materials is a multi-year partner project committed to rethinking and remaking our relationship with materials. In an era shaped by petrochemical dependence, extractive economies, technological determinism, and escalating ecological crises, the project asks how we might work with materials differently – by attending to their legacies, agencies, and entanglements. 

Through residencies, collaborative research, skill-sharing and knowledge exchange, Learning Materials explores how artists, cultural organisations, and communities can build capacity and networks for learning from and with materials in ways that are just, sustainable and grounded in diverse knowledge systems. 

Fellows will work alongside the Learning Materials International Artists in Residence and will have access to the support, expertise, networks and facilities of each partner. 

Applicants will need to demonstrate expertise in material and socially-engaged practices (as opposed to artists looking to learn or experiment for the first time). 

ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP

Learning Materials takes an artist-led approach. The fellowship creates the conditions and resources for arts practitioners to invest in their own material research over a 12-month residency. At the same time, it recognises artists and their expertise as valuable contributors to shaping the direction of the project and its longer-term impact on the local arts ecology.

The fellowships are intended for Finland-based arts practitioners, grounding the project in a specific material, socio-ecological and political context. Together with the fellows, the project will explore how artists in Finland are expanding and experimenting with material processes and ways of producing knowledge, while asking what resources and facilities are needed to support cultural and community-led material shifts on the ground.

While the project emphasises a local approach—rooted in resilience, community and resource building—materials themselves are difficult to contain: they cross borders. Through dialogue between the fellows, international residents and associate partners outside Finland, the project will make visible how material legacies, economies, industries and urgencies are connected to, and implicated in, wider ecologies and infrastructures.

In Learning Materials, research is understood as a practice of doing: a space for the relationship—and magic—between making and thinking. At the same time, the project attends to the socio-ecological dimensions of materials, considering their impacts, legacies, accessibility and extractive histories, and questioning what it means to use them. 

We are interested in artistic practices dealing with materiality across forms, including, but not limited to practices of bioart, food, agriculture, social practice, technology, craft, making, techné, curating and writing. We look forward to receiving proposals on the different research materials, matters and methodologies that fellows might wish to explore.

The Fellows will be awarded 50% working grants directly from Kone Foundation. Alongside developing their own research, their role will include:

• Participating in reflective processes and shaping the projects direction, outcomes and impact, including joining the projects Steering Group while in residence (2 meetings over 12 months).
  
• Supporting the international residents in an informal mentorship capacity, including at least one studio visit with each 3 month resident.
• Working in dialogue with the partners to advise on the curation and content of the Making Public strand (led by Bioart Society and Koynẽ Program) which includes a Learning Programme (workshops, site visits, talks, reading groups) and one week Learning Intensive. Fellows are not expected to be involved in event production, but should present their own work in at least one public event and attend as a representative of the project where possible.
  
• Participating and presenting their work in the Learning Intensive week during 2–8 August 2027.
• Contributing to the publishing strand (led by TUO TUO) which generates open-access ‘learning materials’, by providing materials/content for at least one publishing output (in print, digital and/or audio format).
• Contributing to the gathering of information and mapping of networks, facilities, collectives and individuals creating resources for materially response-able practice locally, regionally and nationally.  

ABOUT THE PARTNERS

The partners represent some of Finland’s leading organisations in sustainable material practice, residencies and artist support. We work at the intersection of art, science and society and play a critical role in the transition towards ecologically conscious art and design practices. What unites us is a commitment to experimentation and the advancement of artists’ and communities’ understanding of their relationship to the planet and one another.

Each partner brings to the project a diversity of expertise and resources, including a vast web of local, national and international networks.

Bioart Society is an association working at the intersection of art, science and society. Bioart Society supports artistic and transdisciplinary work through workshops, residencies, long-term collaborative projects and public dialogue on how biosciences and biotechnology shape the social, political and ethical dimensions of life. In the project they co-curate and deliver the Making Public thread with Koynẽ which involves a learning programme, intensive and hybrid workshops with the partners. 

HIAP Helsinki International Artist Programme will lead on the residency programme and its coordination. HIAP has been delivering residencies for international artists since 1998. In the last decade, HIAP has led a series of collaborative projects investigating ecological thinking and sustainable practices including the Post Fossil Transition Project and Frontiers in Retreat. 

TUO TUO will direct visual communications and open-access publishing outputs. Located in a former schoolhouse in Joutsa’s Pynnölä-Uimaniemi village, TUO TUO (est. 2020) is an artist-led project space, residency and publishing platform, a collaborative organism blurring the binary between city and countryside by offering artists perennial access to a rural context.

Koynẽ Program is an international art and research platform developed by the Helsinki-based association Arcaica Ry, working across art, biological processes and technology. Koynẽ supports artistic and transdisciplinary research through residencies, exhibitions, workshops, material experimentation and collaborative projects, with a particular focus on biomaterials, residual resources and their relationships with digital and other technological practices. Within Learning Materials, Koynẽ co-delivers the Making Public thread with Bioart Society.

ABOUT THE RESIDENCY

Located on a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Suomenlinna is a 15 minute ferry ride from Helsinki city centre. HIAP hosts up to 12 artists simultaneously. Each artist has their own dedicated living and workspace. 

The Fellows will be provided with an Atelier apartment (approx 80 sqm). The Ateliers are furnished live/work studios with a downstairs working space and a separate living area upstairs (sleeping loft, kitchenette, bathroom). 

All residents have 24/7 access to HIAP community facilities such as the Community Room, Project Space, Equipment Room and Wood Workshop. Some equipment (e.g. projectors, sound systems) is available to borrow. 

More information about the residency programme and the facilities available here. 

Fellows can take part in activities organised by HIAP during their residency period. These activities include:

• Welcome lunch with all newly arrived residents and local guests, with an opportunity to present your practice.
• Weekly afternoon coffees in HIAP’s Community Room to check in with fellow residents and hear from visitors to HIAP’s premises.
• Trips and visits to openings and events taking place in Helsinki: the HIAP Residency Team will gather and share weekly roundups of events happening in the city.
• Open Studios with an opportunity to share works in progress: this is one of HIAP’s most popular events that takes place at the end of the residency season and provides an opportunity to celebrate. 

HIAP also hosts and organises events and exhibitions in its own premises, and in collaboration with local partners which residents are warmly welcome to. 

ACCESSIBILITY

Accessibility information for HIAP’s residency site is available here. 

If you would like any further information about accessibility, or would like to discuss your access requirements in advance of making an application, please contact us. 

A separate access budget of up to €1000 for disabled artists is available for the residency. We use an inclusive definition of disability, guided by the social model. By using the term ‘disabled’, we mean those who identify as disabled, D/deaf, neurodivergent, chronically ill, experience mental health conditions, have long-term health conditions, barriers due to impairment or have access needs. We understand that different people use different terms to describe their experiences.

Within the form there is a dedicated section where you can include information about your access requirements. You can also choose to upload an Access Rider separately. This will not be included in the jury process and will be treated in strict confidence. You do not have to declare your access requirements in advance of making the application and there will be further opportunity to share this following selection. 

Information about this Open Call is available in large format and easy read. It is not available in international sign language or audio format – if this is a barrier for you please contact us and we will do our best to support you.

You can make your application in written, audio or video format. Please see further details under ‘How to Apply’. 

INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY

The project partners are committed to fostering a safe and inclusive environment. All residents agree to abide by the following policies and guidelines:

• HIAP’s Safer Spaces Policy is available here. 
• HIAP Staff, Partners and Residents agree to abide by the Code of Conduct, which is available here. 

People from the global majority*, who are LGBTQIA+, disabled** and / or from working class or low socioeconomic backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply. 

*Global majority is a collective term for people of Indigenous, African, Asian or Latin American descent. 

** This includes but is not limited to those who identify as disabled people, as people with long term health conditions, as D/deaf, neurodivergent, chronically ill, experience mental health conditions, barriers due to impairment or have access needs. 

WHO CAN APPLY

This call is for Finland-based artists and arts practitioners only. If you are applying as a collective, please note there is no additional grant available. The Kone Foundation 50% working grant, 1350€/month, can be paid to one individual only. 

Please read Kone Foundation’s funding practicalities for more information about the working grants, taxation, social security and insurances.

Artists and arts practitioners from all disciplines are welcome to apply. Whilst experimentation is encouraged, you must be able to demonstrate long term commitment to the Learning Materials themes within your practice beyond the scope of this fellowship programme. 

Family members are welcome – HIAP Suomenlinna Atelier Apartments can accommodate up to 4 people. It is possible to bring service / support animals to HIAP residencies. There are no pet friendly Ateliers at HIAP Suomenlinna.

HOW TO APPLY

Applications must be submitted via the online application form. Applications sent by email will not be considered. You can apply in written, video or audio format (see below guidance on submissions for audio and video formats)

Required materials for the application:

• Brief outline of your professional background and biography (up to 250 words / 2 minutes)
• Motivation statement including how your work responds to the Learning Materials themes (up to 250 words / 2 minutes)
• Work Plan (up to 250 words / 2 minutes)
• Portfolio / examples of previous work (max 10 pages / 5 minutes). Provided as an external link (please ensure there is no password or restrictions on access otherwise your application will not be assessed). 

Application language is English.

Audio / Video Submission Guidelines

You can answer any question in the application form using audio or video instead of writing a response. To do this, record your answer, upload it to a file sharing or video platform (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, YouTube, Vimeo) and paste the link into that question’s answer field in the form.

Please make sure the links provided have no password or sharing restrictions, otherwise your application will not be assessed. 

Please follow these guidelines when submitting audio / video responses:

• Record in a single, continuous take for each answer – no editing, cutting, or splicing clips together.
• No added music, filters, text overlays, or special effects.
• Speak directly to the camera or microphone, in your own voice.
• Find a reasonably quiet space; background noise is fine, professional sound is not required.
• A smartphone or laptop recording is completely acceptable – we’re not assessing production quality.
• Stay within the time limit as stated in the application form.
• State your name and the title of your proposal at the start.
• Submit in a common file format (MP4/MOV for video, MP3/WAV for audio).

APPLICATION DEADLINE: MONDAY 26 OCTOBER 2026, 3:00 PM (GMT+2)

SELECTION CRITERIA

The selections will be made by a jury consisting of representatives from the partner organisations. The jury will evaluate the applications based on the following criteria:

• Motivation: does the applicant make a strong argument as to why they want to be a fellow?
• Relevance: would the fellowship have a potentially meaningful impact on the local art scene?
• Topicality: does the focus of the proposal resonate well with the Learning Materials theme?
• Diversity: does the applicant consider diversity within their practice and / or how would they contribute to the programme in terms of practice and lived experience?

Quality of applications will be assessed across multiple areas including relevancy, originality and distinctiveness, rigour, presentation, vision and impactfulness.

The final selection will be made based on the highest scoring applicants against the above criteria, and balance across the Learning Materials programme. 

Due to the volume of applications, individual feedback cannot be provided. However we will endeavour to summarise the key jury discussion points and share with all who applied. 

A note on the use of AI in applications:

As a principle, the use of AI in the development of applications is not an issue and we recognise how important AI is as an access and inclusion tool. Unfortunately, we have found in recent open calls that AI is being used to generate the content of the applications (as opposed to supporting the writing and editing process), and this has often resulted in proposals with a lack of voice and authenticity. 

We reference this not to demonise the use of AI in application processes, but to encourage applicants who are using AI to consider how they can maintain their own unique voice within their proposals and avoid weakening their individuality. 

DECISION MAKING AND TIMELINE

A panel of representatives from each partner organisation will make the selection. The Jury will meet on 10 November 2026, after which you will hear from us on next steps.

Shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview with the panel, due to take place online on 7 December 2026. If you cannot make this date, please notify us within your application.