After 6 years we must take break
- but rumours of our demise are greatly exaggerated
(but not completely unjustified)
LAR launched in 2017 in the city of Kavala with the goal of providing an environment where artists and art professionals could meet and make new connections and networks.
At the very heart of our program was to be able to offer to artists “Free-Time”.
The concept seems abstract and some times we find difficult to explain what it actually means within the format of this residency. But some aspects are directly linked to a material reality that has to be addressed in our field, and that is that artists and art-professionals have to be compensated for their “Time” and expertise. Otherwise, “Free-Time” is not truly free.
From the very beginning our team agreed that we would only develop what could be fully financed. And that is how we have operated until now. Unfortunately, the facts of the post-pandemic world and the current cost-of-living crisis have completely derailed all our lives. The cost of producing this residency-both in personal time and in actual monetary values- has reached a point of unsustainability.
This is not, however, a farewell. Our aim is for the Lucy Art Residency to continue in the future, albeit in a new format. We have a lot of ideas and if we can be perfectly honest, we also cherish the opportunity for change. We had five amazing editions in the previous format and it feels to us as a circle has been completed. Updates will be posted, in time, on our social media and webpage. KORAX Contemporary is also still very busy with producing our sister residency, Makryammos AiR in Thasos Island, so keep an eye on it.
We would like to thank everyone that has been with us these past six years, the artists, the jurors, the local businesses, the municipality of the City of Kavala.
Thank you and see you soon in Kavala when our moulting and metamorphosis are complete!
Nikolas Ventourakis
Artistic Director, Lucy Art Residency
FAQ
Is the residency program still active?
Currently the residency program is inactive. We will resume activities in the future and an announcement will be made on our social media and webpage.
Will there be an open call?
We are redesigning the program from the ground-up. Therefore we are unable to confirm at this moment if the open call format will exist in the next iteration of the residency.
Could I contact you with a proposal for a residency?
Thank you very much for offering to share your ideas and time with us. Unfortunately, at the moment we are unable to accept unsolicited proposals.
Lucy hotel
This avant garde and ultra-modern hotel opened on April 1st, 1976. With its 217 rooms and the grand reception areas, it added an unprecedented impetus to the city’s tourism scene.
For more than two decades, the hotel was a point of reference for the tourism of the Kavala prefecture and the broader region.
The 1990s left their mark on LUCY hotel: the war in Yugoslavia, which disconnected the road connection of Kavala to Central Europe, and the general decline of the prefecture with the transfer of the main development projects to the neighboring prefectures of Thrace.
In 2006 the company’s management decided to launch a complete renovation project and upgrade the hotel to 5 stars.
The goal was to transform Lucy hotel into a luxury, modern unit, that provides the easy comfort and functionality of modern 5 star hotels, at the same time retaining is older classical chic glamour.
At the end of the 2007 summer tourism season, the renovation works started and they were completed in spring of 2009.
The central design concept for the new Lucy was to preserve the simple modernism which is characteristic for the avant-garde for its time building, and the 60s aesthetics, with strong interventions of modern structural applications.
Lucy hotel
Iakinthou
Kavala, 654 04 Greece
info@lucyartresidency.com
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