SACRIFICE ZONE
Open Call SIT-RES 2026 at Idensitat, Barcelona. 2026
Deadline: 20 June 23:59 CET.
Focus
Idensitat Barcelona Residency programme - a situated research and production residency, experimenting within the intersection between art, mediation, and social space. A temporary artistic residency, with an artist/collective as creator/s and researcher/s examining the proposed theme Sacrifice Zone in the local context of the Besòs river in Barcelona metropolitan area.
Key themes
This open call is for artistic projects which focus upon, or which adopt as their main theme the concept of the Sacrifice Zone. A Sacrifice Zone is an area with a massive concentration of —chemical, metallurgical, or extractive— industries, which create conditions conducive to economic development but at the expense of the quality of life of its inhabitants, and its environmental balance.
The proliferation of industries along the course of the Bèsos river, the unregulated dumping of untreated effluent, and the lack of sanitation infrastructure were the main reasons for the river's pollution, scoring high levels of heavy metals, organic matter, and toxic substances. These conditions led to the river and its surrounding area becoming invisible, isolated, and lethargic, disconnected from the community. A process of regeneration and reactivation resulted in a reversal of the river’s degradation, renovating it as a green area, a space of sustainable environmental value for the city, and location for renewed community activity and social interaction with nature. But both conditions, degraded and renovated, can, and usually do, combine, and it is in this constant flux that the possibilities either of inhabiting spaces differently, or of experiencing the rhythmic movements between degradation and renovation, become apparent.
Following in this direction, Idensitat is interested in examining the transition between a degraded space and its renovation, and the role that art can play in this fragile change of condition. We consider that in this transition, artistic practice may catalyse and accelerate the transformation between these two conditions, crystallising and causing the appearance of an intermediate space, moving between one state and another, and generating a variation which in many cases is ephemeral and even momentary, but which is capable of questioning or modifying, rigid structures, or of making these structures flexible.
Idensitat will organise a multidisciplinary transfer of knowledge and learning, in the form of a Public Programme involving a number of local agents as an operative network, including collectives or individuals interested in working within the proposed theme. The artist must propose activities such as interventions in public space, open presentations of results, and knowledge sharing activities related to the project, and within Idensitat’s public programme.
Local Context
The operative context for this project is the area comprising neighbourhoods near the mouth of the Besòs river in Barcelona. The neighbourhoods of Trinitat Vella, Bon Pastor, Baró de Viver, La Sagrera, and Sant Andreu are located on the edge of the city in an area with many road and railway links to the metropolitan region (formed by Barcelona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Sant Adrià de Besòs and Montcada i Reixac). These neighbourhoods are densely populated and have broadened their relationship to the river since its reclamation as a natural space, becoming one of the main green spaces within the metropolitan region.
Timeline and Commitment
The residency will begin in January 2026 and the resident/s will commit to one year’s work (January 2026- December 2026), with a requirement to come to Barcelona in three separate occasions of at least one month each, schedule of visits to be decided.
The resident/s must send an approximate calendar for the project in advance to be discussed with the Idensitat team.
Residency Grant and Facilities
13.500€ for fees and expenses (artists must be VAT registered)
Up to 1.200€ for help with travel
Up to 5.000€ for production costs managed by Idensitat and transferred to the artists on the presentation of proofs of purchase of materials/services/external expertise.
A work space will be provided for the duration of the residency.
For artists who may need extra funding for travel expenses, Idensitat may issue a letter of confirmation to the relevant bodies.
Residents will have the opportunity to participate in the Exchange and Evaluation sessions of the SIT-PLU project, which will encourage a continuous exchange of practices and experiences among partners and residents. All projects will be presented in a final exhibition, scheduled to take place at the end of the SIT-PLU project (around February 2028) in Brussels.
Eligibility
The residencies are aimed at artists willing to investigate and explore the proposed theme in order to activate relevant creative processes within the local context; from analysing existing ecosystems in order to address its present state, to imagining other possible ecosystems, or to construct fictions which generate other attainable realities.
Contact and Q&A online session
Do you have questions about this specific residency? You can send an email to
We are organising a Q&A online session about the open call for our residency on May 5th at 6 p.m. You can register here
Downloads
Full Open Call (PDF)
Idensitat - Terms and Conditions (PDF)
You can apply by filling out this form with the following information/materials (in English):
- Your motivation letter (max 1 page)
- Your CV (max 2 page)
- A portfolio highlighting max 5 of your projects most fitting to the topic of this call
- A short proposal of the project you want to work on during the fellowship focusing on one of the context/hosting institutions (max 1 page)
The deadline for this phase is 20 June 23:59 CET. The results of this phase will be communicated by the end of July
Organisation
IDENSITAT is an arts project investigating ways of impacting upon the public sphere through creative proposals related to place and territory in their spatial, temporal and social dimensions. IDENSITAT incorporates other projects, actions or interventions, expanding into a number of different places and contexts. It promotes creative strategies combining research, production, cultural management, education and communication. Idensitat operates as a system based upon collaborative dynamics, interweaving practices from the arts with those from other disciplines, and developing mechanisms for connecting these to social space. www.idensitat.net