Halaqat Residencies
Halaqat is a supraregional project connecting and supporting artists and cultural practitioners from European and Arab countries through residencies, public events, grants and exchanges focused on care and gender.
For more information visit: Halaqat - Goethe-Institut Egypt.
Halaqat Residency 1 – Photography Residency
Country: Cairo, Egypt
Duration: 3 months
Dates: 15 September – 15 December 2025
Eligible Discipline(s): Photography
Preferred Language(s) of Communication: Arabic & English
Photography in Egypt has long been a powerful medium for visual storytelling. Over the years, a growing network of artists and institutions has developed diverse ideas, approaches, and techniques challenging the conventions and engaging with the regional and global discourses.
The residency welcomes photographers working in documentary, fine art, or fashion photography whose practices intersect with contemporary art, cultural inquiry, and conceptual exploration. We are especially interested in projects around the topic of care, exploring diverse narratives, social realities, and aesthetic expressions, offering strong visual and thematic contributions to current artistic and cultural conversation.
The residency offers local exchange and networking opportunities with artists, groups, and institutions, as well as project development and the possibility to showcase works or work-in-progress at a public event around the topics of Halaqat on care and gender. The artists in residence will also have ample time to explore Cairo and other cities relevant to their projects.
Halaqat Residency 2 - Comics & Graphic Novels
Country: Cairo, Egypt
Duration: 3 months
Dates: 11 January - 9 April 2026
Eligible Discipline(s): Comics & Graphic Novels
Preferred Language(s) of Communication: Arabic & English
About the residency:
Comics and graphic novels offer a powerful space for visual storytelling, where drawing and writing come together to capture complex ideas, layered emotions, and lived experiences. Their unique rhythm, pacing, and visual language allow artists to slow time, highlight gestures, and give voice to what often goes unspoken.
Within the framework of the Halaqat project, a three-month residency will take place in Cairo from 11 January to 9 April 2026, hosted at the “White Villa” residency space of the Goethe-Institut Cairo. This residency invites artists working with comics, graphic novels, and illustrated narratives as part of their artistic practice to reflect on themes of care and gender, whether through personal stories, speculative worlds, or forms of social commentary.
Placing particular emphasis on memory, relational and personal experience, the residency offers space to explore how we live and care through illustration, voice, and narrative form. We welcome projects that draw on the language of comics, such as panels, sequence, rhythm, and voice, to shape meaningful stories about how we relate to ourselves and others. Both traditional and experimental formats are encouraged, providing space to develop new work and expand the expressive possibilities of visual storytelling.
The residency offers local exchange and networking opportunities with artists, groups, and institutions, as well as project development and the possibility to showcase works or work-in-progress at a public event around the topics of Halaqat on care and gender. The artists in residence will also have ample time to explore Cairo and other cities relevant to their projects.
Some examples of what we’re looking for:
- Graphic novels in progress or long-form illustrated narratives.
- Comics that reflect on care and gender topics.
- Hybrid or experimental formats that play with form, narration, or structure.
- Projects that use sequential art to explore the rhythms of daily life.
- Visual storytelling that gives voice to quiet, overlooked, or personal perspectives.
Halaqat Residency 3 - New Media and Digital Arts
Country: Cairo, Egypt
Duration: 3 months
Dates: 19 April – 18 July 2026
Eligible Discipline(s): New Media and Digital Arts, including interactive installations, sound, video, code, online platforms, AI, virtual and augmented reality, and immersive or interactive art.
Preferred Language(s) of Communication: Arabic and English
About the residency:
In times shaped by algorithmic and intelligent systems, as well as constant digital presence and pressure, our modes of attention, connection, and care are being redefined. As emotional and relational experiences become increasingly mediated through technological environments, new artistic questions emerge about fragility, exposure, and how we inhabit the digital sphere.Within the framework of the Halaqat project, a three-month residency will take place from 19 April to 18 July 2026, hosted at the “White Villa” residency space of the Goethe-Institut Cairo. The residency invites artists working across new media and digital arts to explore how digital tools inform, complicate, or transform the ways we relate to ourselves and to others.
This residency places particular emphasis on projects engaging with care and gender in digital environments, especially through the lens of algorithmic and intelligent systems, emotional technologies, and online experiences.
We welcome practices that work with generative code, AI processes, or real-time data as both materials and subjects, as well as artistic responses that reflect on digital care and vulnerability. Topics may include inquiries into digital intimacy, exposure, fatigue, encryption, and consent, as well as how digital tools might be reimagined to support protection and care.
We invite artists to reflect on how emerging technologies shape listening, connection and care and to explore creative approaches to the increasing presence of automation and interactivity in everyday life.
The residency offers local exchange and networking opportunities with artists, groups, and institutions, as well as project development and the possibility to showcase works or work-in-progress at a public event around the topics of Halaqat on care and gender. The artists in residence will also have ample time to explore Cairo and other cities relevant to their projects.
Some examples of what we’re looking for:
- Works using algorithms or AI to reflect on patterns, attention, or behaviour
- Interactive installations shaped by user input, real-time data, or generative systems
- Projects exploring encryption, privacy, or digital vulnerability through creative means
- Digital storytelling using AR, VR, or web-based platforms
- Sound, code, or network-based artworks that explore care and connection
- Cross-disciplinary projects blending movement, voice, text, or digital interaction