Residential fellowships in the Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in Bad Ems, Germany are awarded to international visual artists.  The 2017 residential fellowships focus is CERAMICS. Furthermore a curator fellowship is awarded to a junior academic graduate.

Since 2013, fellowships are offered in one artistic genre or one theme each year which is announced at the beginning of the application period early May. This offering, which is unique in Germany, is intended to enable deeper mutual creative cross-fertilisation among the resident artists. It will also lead to a more intensive specialist exchange of ideas with external artists, speakers, teachers, curators, etc.

Currently free artistic creation is heavily influenced by the applied arts. Clay, especially, with its rich tradition, is a material that is being used in a great variety of ways by contemporary fine artists. Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral wishes to respond to this development by actively promoting it.

For the 2017 residential fellowships the focus is therefore on ceramics.

In this context, ceramics does not mean just modelled and fired clay. We are looking rather for formal and conceptual sounding out of boundaries and possibilities in all the various artistic genres. Clay may be used as the sole material, but may also be combined with other materials.

Our visiting artists will be welcomed with a few tubs of clay in their studios.

The artists-in-residence will enjoy support and assistance for their experimental work and for firing and glazing, as well as for exchanging ideas, from a co-operation with the Institute of Ceramic and Glass Art of the Koblenz University of Applied Sciences in Höhr-Grenzhausen and Ebinger-Schnass Keramik, a construction ceramics firm based in Bad Ems, as competent partners at their side.

Eligibility
Eligible to apply for a Balmoral fellowship are visual artists of any age from Germany and around the world.

The preconditions for applicants for the residential fellowships for visual artists are a completed course of study in art (M.F.A. or comparable) and three years of continuous artistic work after the conclusion of studies until the beginning of the fellowship. Applications are also possible for autodidacts distinguished by special artistic achievements, as documented by exhibitions and prizes.

Knowledge of German or English is expected.

For international visual artists
- Two 3-month Balmoral residential fellowships
- Four 9-month Balmoral residential fellowships

For international fellows in the humanities
- One 9-month Balmoral residential fellowship for a curator

For the curator fellowship, mastery of the German language spoken and in writing as well as good knowledge of English is essential.

Read more about what is offered to selected fellows.

Application deadline: The application period for 2017 fellowships runs up to and including June 30th 2016 (date of postmark). 

Artists’ residence Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral in Bad Ems was founded in 1995 and is a place of reflection, artistic production, discussion and meeting. It supports visual artists from all over the world by awarding artists-in-residence fellowships.

The Künstlerhaus is publicly presented through lectures, concerts and exhibitions. Works by the fellows are regularly shown in ‘Made in Balmoral’, the Künstlerhaus’s exhibition space in the Bad Ems city centre. Schloss Balmoral sees itself as an interface between artistic work and theoretical reflection and as a point of contact between former and present fellows. Balmoral intends to build a bridge between the artists' present and their future.