Villa Albertine revamps the concept of French residencies abroad

“Recovering the influence of our cultural diplomacy is now a top priority for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, said the French Minister in charge of Foreign Affairs during the presentation of the Villa Albertine project to the press, a project that embodies this strategic recovery. Villa Albertine opened in Autumn in multiple places in the United States. It is a French residency programme abroad that revamps the French cultural diplomacy by implementing a network of residences: a “villa at the scale of a country”!

After the French residencies in Rome, Madrid and Kyoto, France has announced the launch of Villa Albertine, a new residency programme for artists in the USA. The name, Villa Albertine, references one of the “Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” from Marcel Proust’s novel, and stems from this prestigious tradition. This project returns to the ambition of developing the French cultural network by creating “the villa of the 21st century”. Because Villa Albertine reinvents the fundamental concept of residency: it deploys in ten of the biggest American cities to face “a challenge of a new kind, not as a single location in a single city, but as an opportunity to make a stop anywhere you want to be”.

Ending the obsession of a place of residence

According to the designers (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and support from the Ministry of Culture), Villa Albertine is first and foremost “a gamble to spread the new transatlantic momentum to the culture industry and to ideas”. To embody this momentum, France imagined a cultural institution arranged as a network. With a network spread all over the US territory, Villa Albertine will include a team of 80 people implemented in the 10 biggest US cities, with headquarters in New York and nine permanent offices in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, New Orleans, San Francisco and Washington. This network is critical to support “as close as possible to the American field the French cultural agents in their projects and challenges”, thanks to a scheme better adapted to the local cultural landscape.

“No American city alone can embody all of the cultural diversity and energy that make the US the first influencer country in the cultural industry” said the director of cultural services from the French embassy in New York and next director of Villa Albertine. To connect with “the realities of a deeply multipolar country, we had to go further than the traditional model of Villas, a single country in a single city”. In short, it was necessary to “end the obsession of a place of residence. It is no longer the residents that must adapt to the Villa, but the Villa that must adapt to the residents!”

Shifting the centre of gravity

“The stake is not only to be everywhere at the same time, but also to offer tailor-made solutions in each place” says the director of Villa Albertine. This is one a new format of residence “less standardised, more flexible and better supported” is imagined for artists in residency. Villa Albertine is about to offer a different experience that offers “in the contrary to dive deep in the American realities, by shifting the centre of gravity from the place of residence to the territory of residence”.

In practical terms, artists will benefit from priority support from the teams in the Villa, that “boasts experts in each disciplinary field, supervisors in each city and a team dedicated to logistic support of residents”. In addition, they will benefit from support from a French institutional partner and one or several American partners identified depending on the project. So artists will find “another form of community” beyond the walls of the residency, since “the dialogue with the American, and integration will be common theme of residency projects”.

Offering a global and flexible scheme

For the inaugural season of Villa Albertine that will start next November, the press release specifies that an invitation was sent to cultural institutions “embodying the diversity of the French cultural landscape” to present the first 60 residents. The first season will thus welcome a diverse promotion “both in terms of profiles chosen and disciplines represented”.

These 60 “tailor-made” residencies lasting from one to three months are indeed intended for “creators (all disciplines), thinkers, but also professionals of the cultural industry (museum directors, for example)”. They will include several artists such as Constance Debré, a writer in residency in New York, Nicolas Floc’h, photographer and plastic artist in residency along the Mississippi river, or Quentin Zuttion, comic book writer, in traveling residency, in train, from New York to Los Angeles!

In addition to the residency programme, Villa Albertine will open to other types of events, such as festivals, single events or regular cycles, that will complete a “global and flexible scheme of support to French cultural stakeholders, at the heart of a sine qua non territory”.

To know more: 

- Press release on the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs website

- Villa Albertine official website

- Presentation of Villa Albertine on the France Culture radio website (with podcasts)

Photo credit:  © MEAE