Yiddishland Pavilion Residencies 2026
Yiddishland Pavilion in collaboration with Jewish Renaissance and partnership with Venezia Contemporanea, invites applications from UK-based Jewish artists for a short-term research residency in Venice. This residency programme grows out of Jewish Renaissance's Artist Development Scheme and Yiddishland Pavilion’s ongoing work at and beyond the Venice Biennale.
Two residency places are available, taking place in May 2026, and based in the historic Jewish Ghetto of Venice. The residency coincides with the 61st Venice Biennale and forms part of Yiddishland Pavilion’s wider Biennale programme.
Jewish Renaissance is the UK's leading Jewish arts quarterly, offering a fresh perspective on Jewish heritage to a global audience. As well as showcasing the best of Jewish culture in our reporting, JR offers regular opportunities for deepening engagement with international Jewish life through online and in person events, short breaks and tours.
Jewish Renaissance is committed to running programmes to support the growth of the next generation of Jewish creatives and these Yiddishland Pavilion residencies reflect a shared commitment to diasporic thinking, artistic research, and international exchange between the two organisations.
Dates
Two slots are available Tuesday 12 - Thursday 21 May 2026 and Friday 22 - Sunday 31 May 2026
Eligibility and Focus
The residency is open to contemporary UK-based Jewish visual artists, who would be interested to explore the following thematic strands:
What's included:
Who can apply
The residency is open to contemporary UK based Jewish visual artists who are interested in exploring their Jewishness as part of an artistic practice.
How to apply
Please send an email containing the following to yiddishlandpavilion@gmail.com by Tuesday 3 March:
Two residency places are available, taking place in May 2026, and based in the historic Jewish Ghetto of Venice. The residency coincides with the 61st Venice Biennale and forms part of Yiddishland Pavilion’s wider Biennale programme.
Jewish Renaissance is the UK's leading Jewish arts quarterly, offering a fresh perspective on Jewish heritage to a global audience. As well as showcasing the best of Jewish culture in our reporting, JR offers regular opportunities for deepening engagement with international Jewish life through online and in person events, short breaks and tours.
Jewish Renaissance is committed to running programmes to support the growth of the next generation of Jewish creatives and these Yiddishland Pavilion residencies reflect a shared commitment to diasporic thinking, artistic research, and international exchange between the two organisations.
Dates
Two slots are available Tuesday 12 - Thursday 21 May 2026 and Friday 22 - Sunday 31 May 2026
Eligibility and Focus
The residency is open to contemporary UK-based Jewish visual artists, who would be interested to explore the following thematic strands:
- British Jewish experiences: Reflecting experiences of migration, class, language, belonging, visibility and the shifting conditions of Jewish life in the UK historically and today;
- Jewish Venice: Exploring the Jewish Ghetto – a site of restriction as well as a centre of vibrant Jewish life – looking at the rich cultural production originating from a site of restriction, against a backdrop of trade, exile, multilingual Jewish life and how the city reflects this today;
- Jewish languages in contemporary art: Considering living Jewish languages such as Yiddish (or another Jewish dialect language such as Ladino or Judeo-Arabic) as cultural resources, providing opportunities for translation, hybridity, memory and resistance.
What's included:
- Accommodation
- Curatorial support
- Showcasing your work
- Stipend
Who can apply
The residency is open to contemporary UK based Jewish visual artists who are interested in exploring their Jewishness as part of an artistic practice.
How to apply
Please send an email containing the following to yiddishlandpavilion@gmail.com by Tuesday 3 March:
- A short biography [max 250 words]
- A brief description of your project or research focus [max 500 words]
- A portfolio of up to 10 images [as PDF attachment or via a link]
- Your preferred residency dates (or availability for both slots, if applicable)
Open Call
Yiddishland Pavilion × Jewish Renaissance Research
Residency in Venice
Yiddishland Pavilion × Jewish Renaissance Research
Residency in Venice
Yiddishland Pavilion Residencies 2024-2025
We are thrilled to announce the winner of our open call for participation in the short-term residency program at La Storta residency and exhibition space!
The selected artist-in-residence is conceptual artist Natalia Chmielarz, who will spend 10 days in Venice conducting her research and developing her project. Natalia’s idea for the residency particularly resonated with us due to its engagement with the Ghetto and its Yiddish past and present, explored through language and human communication.
We are grateful to all applicants — we received a remarkable number of submissions from around the world and were delighted to learn about so many wonderful projects. We will continue to follow the work of all applicants and hope to explore other opportunities for collaboration in the future!
During her residency at the Yiddishland Pavilion, Natalia Chmielarz will develop a project inspired by a riddle found in the pre-war Yiddish weekly Idishe Bilder. The riddle asks: Vos darf men yenem zogn? / What should one say to others? From this seemingly simple question, the artist will construct a neo-mail art work — a gesture of correspondence, dialogue, and reflection on truth and human relations.
As part of the project, Natalia will distribute green, hand-calligraphed envelopes containing the question in Yiddish, Italian, and English, inviting recipients to respond. The collected answers will be placed in a simple transparent urn, forming a collective, ephemeral sculpture presented at La Storta Gallery. Chmielarz will carry out her action both within the former ghetto area and in other parts of the city, reaching residents as well as visitors attending the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
The work draws on Ashkenazi Jewish heritage and Yiddish literature, as well as on the figure of the writer Der Nister – The Hidden One – whose pseudonym the artist symbolically transforms into its feminine form, Di Nister.
Natalia Chmielarz (born in Warsaw, 1991) - Her artistic practice lies primarily at the intersection of conceptual and performative art. She also works within the broader field of Yiddish culture. In her practice, the artist investigates the contemporary relevance of culture
and its potential to explore questions of identity, reframe the meanings of the past, and articulate a contemporary Polish-Jewish artistic language.
The selected artist-in-residence is conceptual artist Natalia Chmielarz, who will spend 10 days in Venice conducting her research and developing her project. Natalia’s idea for the residency particularly resonated with us due to its engagement with the Ghetto and its Yiddish past and present, explored through language and human communication.
We are grateful to all applicants — we received a remarkable number of submissions from around the world and were delighted to learn about so many wonderful projects. We will continue to follow the work of all applicants and hope to explore other opportunities for collaboration in the future!
During her residency at the Yiddishland Pavilion, Natalia Chmielarz will develop a project inspired by a riddle found in the pre-war Yiddish weekly Idishe Bilder. The riddle asks: Vos darf men yenem zogn? / What should one say to others? From this seemingly simple question, the artist will construct a neo-mail art work — a gesture of correspondence, dialogue, and reflection on truth and human relations.
As part of the project, Natalia will distribute green, hand-calligraphed envelopes containing the question in Yiddish, Italian, and English, inviting recipients to respond. The collected answers will be placed in a simple transparent urn, forming a collective, ephemeral sculpture presented at La Storta Gallery. Chmielarz will carry out her action both within the former ghetto area and in other parts of the city, reaching residents as well as visitors attending the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
The work draws on Ashkenazi Jewish heritage and Yiddish literature, as well as on the figure of the writer Der Nister – The Hidden One – whose pseudonym the artist symbolically transforms into its feminine form, Di Nister.
Natalia Chmielarz (born in Warsaw, 1991) - Her artistic practice lies primarily at the intersection of conceptual and performative art. She also works within the broader field of Yiddish culture. In her practice, the artist investigates the contemporary relevance of culture
and its potential to explore questions of identity, reframe the meanings of the past, and articulate a contemporary Polish-Jewish artistic language.
Short-term residency program winner is
Natalia Chmielarz!
Natalia Chmielarz!
In the first part of October 2025, the Sala-Manca group (Lea Mauas and Diego Rotman), a duo of artists and performers, will spend a few days at the Yiddishland Pavilion Residency, co-organized with La Storta exhibition and residency space.
During their residency, they will develop a new edition of their continuous Sukkah project, adapting it to the local context of Venice. The project, an ongoing exploration spanning over a decade, builds on their long-standing work with the sukkah as a structure of radical imagination and cultural critique, transforming fragile architecture into a vessel for mobility, hospitality, and diasporic poetics.
Sala-Manca (Lea Mauas and Diego Rotman) is a group of Argentinian born and independent artists that have worked mainly in Jerusalem since 2000 and in Toronto. The group creates in different fields: performance, video, installation, curatorial and publishing. Sala-manca’s works deal with poetics of translation (cultural, mediatic and social), with textual, urban and net contexts as well as social and political issues.
During their residency, they will develop a new edition of their continuous Sukkah project, adapting it to the local context of Venice. The project, an ongoing exploration spanning over a decade, builds on their long-standing work with the sukkah as a structure of radical imagination and cultural critique, transforming fragile architecture into a vessel for mobility, hospitality, and diasporic poetics.
Sala-Manca (Lea Mauas and Diego Rotman) is a group of Argentinian born and independent artists that have worked mainly in Jerusalem since 2000 and in Toronto. The group creates in different fields: performance, video, installation, curatorial and publishing. Sala-manca’s works deal with poetics of translation (cultural, mediatic and social), with textual, urban and net contexts as well as social and political issues.
in residency at La Storta Space, Venice
October 2025
Sala-Manca
(Lea Mauas and Diego Rotman)
Sala-Manca
(Lea Mauas and Diego Rotman)
In his residency in Venice that took place during the 60th Venice biennale of Art artist and architect Daniel Toretsky focused on scanning and mapping the Giardini and other Biennale sites, exploring how their unique architecture, waterways, and landscapes could shape his future project for the Yiddishland Pavilion. The residency allowed Toretsky to engage with the layered history, cultural density, and ephemeral qualities of Venice, considering how a temporary structure could resonate within this singular urban and artistic context.
Out of this process emerged The Hereness Wagon, a project exploring the tensions between transience and permanence, ephemerality and eternity, the sacred and the profane. Guided by the principles of Yiddishland vernacular architecture, the work demonstrated how minimal materials could transform an existing space, imbuing it with layered meaning and resonances that unfolded across time and perception.
Hereness Wagon premiered a year later from the residency, on May 8-11, 2025 during the professioal preview and the pening weekend of the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Daniel Toretsky, a Cornell-trained architect based in Brooklyn, works as an educator, exhibit designer, and MFA candidate at The New School. His practice explores Jewish spatial rituals to create gathering spaces rooted in community, heritage, and futurism.
Out of this process emerged The Hereness Wagon, a project exploring the tensions between transience and permanence, ephemerality and eternity, the sacred and the profane. Guided by the principles of Yiddishland vernacular architecture, the work demonstrated how minimal materials could transform an existing space, imbuing it with layered meaning and resonances that unfolded across time and perception.
Hereness Wagon premiered a year later from the residency, on May 8-11, 2025 during the professioal preview and the pening weekend of the 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Daniel Toretsky, a Cornell-trained architect based in Brooklyn, works as an educator, exhibit designer, and MFA candidate at The New School. His practice explores Jewish spatial rituals to create gathering spaces rooted in community, heritage, and futurism.
in residency in Venice
May 2024
Daniel Toretsky
Daniel Toretsky
