We plan to accept new applications beginning in January 2024. No application fee will be required; a $2 USD processing fee, only.
ODYSSEYS
Our former Residency Fees no longer apply as we reevaluate our funding program. Please check back with us in the coming year.
Exploring Art and Culture in
Welcome to Costa Rica's premier Artist Residency since 2007. Accepting new applications beginning January 2024.
Intercultural
COSTA RICA
Click on a photo to enlarge and link directly to the artist's social media.
Because the time you dedicate to your art is precious, when accepting applications, we accept them with no application fee, year-round, up to one year in advance. You can be assured that your application will be reviewed through a rigorous committee selection process. You will be among your peers!
Our one-of-a-kind Artist Residency offers two options for your living accommodations and workspace: in one of our partnering Home Stays with a carefully selected local host family, most meals included, or in our partnering Holistic Wellness Center, where meals are pay-as-you-go with various options.
We encourage writers, composers, choreographers\dancers, visual artists, textile artists, performance artists, and artists in all other disciplines, emerging or established, from anywhere in the world, to apply for one of our residencies.
Creativity abounds in our community, inspiring artists in all disciplines locally and from around the world. Art flourishes inside the walls of our urban galleries and museums, as well as outdoors in nature and on the street.
And our location couldn't be better: San Ramón de Alajuela, renowned "City of Poets," surrounded by the equally renowned hills of "Las Musas" (The Muses), Costa Rica. We encourage you to join us. To be inspired by Intercultural ODYSSEYS, Costa Rica, and to be inspirational. By sharing your experience, knowledge, and skills with other creative minds who think as globally as you do, some living locally and others hailing from abroad.
Collaborations and groups are encouraged. Please inquire. From time to time an artist must unexpectedly reschedule, or for some other reason, we have space we're eager to fill on short notice. If interested, please inquire regarding availability and ask about our expedited application process.
WRITERS
Our writers are provided a private space with standard desk or table and chair (adjustable when possible).
COMPOSERS
Our composers are provided private work space for their own equipment, or the option of either a professional electronic keyboard in their accommodations/workspace, or access to a piano at SINEM, our local music institute, within a 15-minute walk from either Home Stay or Holistic Wellness Center accommodations. Composers working within the environments of either their Home Stay or our partnering Holistic Wellness Center, will need to be respectful of their surroundings, which may require use of earphones or other forms of working silently. In the private studio rooms of our local music institute, pianos are available and noise is not a factor.
VISUAL ARTISTS
Many of our visual artists are photographers, videographers, multi-media artists, muralists and plein air painters who work out and about. For those who work indoors our host families typically have indoor and covered outdoor garden areas with natural light and space for work. This requires ingenuity and flexibility on the part of the artist, but has worked well for many over the years.
Visual artists who require more formal indoor studio space must request this during the application process and must understand that this may only be available with our partnering Holistic Wellness Center accommodation option. Though in general, equipment and supplies are the responsibility of each artist, we are often able to provide at least one large work table per artist.
Though not guaranteed due to various logistical factors, over the years many of our visual artists have exhibited publicly during their artist's residency, often at the end, at appropriate local venues such as SiNEM (Institute for the National System of Music Education) the Figueres Museum and Cultural Center and our favorite venue for events that combine readings, music in concert and visual art, Costa Rica Regional Museum of San Ramón. As well as at the National Museum and National Gallery in our country's capital city, San Jose.
More feasible for visual artists who wish to exhibit during their residency is an exhibit in a sizeable salon in the entry of our partnering Holistic Wellness Center. Some artists have chosen to finish their work back at home and send it to be exhibited in one of the venues above. Others have returned for a follow-up residency to include more work and an exhibit of their completed work so far.
Click on a photo to enlarge and link directly to the artist's social media.
WHAT TO EXPECT AS AN ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE WITH ODYSSEYS COSTA RICA
We at Intercultural ODYSSEYS Costa Rica are proud to have hosted artists from as far abroad as Newfoundland, Canada,
Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany, Portugal, Argentina, Mexico, USA, and England (including the remote island
of Guernsey, of the English Channel islands) - and growing.
Spanish is our local language with English spoken widely, and we've hosted artists who spoke neither. Those are the challenges
we love. So if you can imagine your project and have the professional skills to make it happen during your residency,
we do everything possible to provide you with the uninterrupted time, space, and inspiration you need.
We provide each artist-in-residence with the following:
- Selection Committee review and evaluation of portfolio or manuscript.
- Airport pick-up on arrival date as arranged in advance with ODYSSEYS staff
- Although transportation to the airport departure is not included in the Residency Fee, ODYSSEYS staff members will assist with making those arrangements).
- ODYSSEYS standard food, lodging, and workspace accommodations in a Home Stay with a carefully selected host family.
- This includes three meals daily, Monday through Friday, a private bedroom and shared bathroom, weekly laundry services, house cleaning and change of bed & bath linens, plus access to all common spaces within the home's indoor and outdoor areas.
- Workspaces vary by home. Standard Residency Fee applies.
- Also available, ODYSSEYS optional food, lodging, and workspace accommodations at our partnering Holistic Wellness
- Center. This includes a private 2 bedroom 1 bathroom suite with mini-fridge and sitting area, as well as access to the
- Center's ample common areas, workspaces, indoor garden spots, and two huge salons for yoga and dance and/or choreography practice. Meals are on your own locally or delivered for under one U.S. dollar. Onsite space is provided for storage and preparation of your own meals if desired.
- Weekly laundry services may incur an additional fee. An optional Residency Fee applies.
- Individual workspaces are provided as described below as well as possible, according to the artist's discipline, any arrangements made during the application process, and the artist's choice of accommodations.
- Both Home Stay and Holistic Wellness Center accommodations provide WiFi/Internet on-site.
- Abundant and inexpensive local Internet cafes are within walking distance of artist accommodations.
- Cultural immersion into a truly community-based Artist-in-Residence program.
- Opportunities to practice Spanish or learn some (a working knowledge is helpful but not required, classes/tutoring available)
- Same-day as arrival or next-morning orientation to the program and Costa Rica, with a tour of San Ramón.
Two weekly events hosted by ODYSSEYS, always optional, integrating all artists in residence:
- An afternoon or after-dinner get-together, usually Tuesdays, for all artists in residence to share their work with each other, local artists when possible, and with the Program Director; encouraged, never required, in the form of open studios, presentations, readings, and general discussions.
- One local outing, usually Fridays, to galleries, museums, theaters, and other aspects of local culture, as well as adventure trips to beaches, volcanoes, and other natural wonders of Costa Rica. Friday day trips abroad are generally by efficient and inexpensive local buses.