The historical origin of artistic residencies in Spain dates back to the beginning of the 20th century in the house of Velázquez. Its objectives were matched with those of the Francesa Academy in Rome, a venue founded in 1666 that offered prize-winning Roman artists a five-year artistic residency in the Italian capital to study the classical masters.
In the 1980s and 1990s two types of residences appeared in Spain: rural and urban.
These places arose from the need to create work and creation spaces for artists, a desire to rescue the tangible and intangible heritage of a place and the phenomenon of globalization and increased international mobility. To this day, artistic residency proposals continue to grow and evolve. They venture to preserve authenticity and the symbiosis between origin, manifestation and the artists’ need for expression.
