the TEMENOS art fellowship

MEET the FELLOWS. EXPLORE the FRAME. FOLLOW the PROCESS.

the 2025/26 TEMENOS opens.

the TEMENOS art fellowship

an [art/life]
incubator
for radical*
creative practice

An art fellowship in Brittany, France for artists, researchers, and creators devoted to radical life-creation, integrative inquiry, and the cultivation of a new vision for the shared world.

10 fellows. 1 year.

Fellowship Dates: [September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026]

(with early arrival possible starting in June - pending availability, spaces offered to those first to confirm)

Application Deadline: PAST

download PROSPECTUS (.pdf)

*radical - from Latin radicalis, *wrād- "branch, root"; "of or having roots; originating in the root or ground; going to the origin, essential"

WHAT

the TEMENOS art fellowship is a dedicated incubator for long-term artistic / experiential research and development. Over the course of one year, ten individuals will live and work, side by side - each responsible for the flourishing of their own creative practice - while offering possibilities of support and emergent confluence between individual currents. A co-creative frame for shaping life in alignment with a purpose-driven-practice.

Each participant arrives to shape their own world - and to open it to others. In parallel, they are invited into deep contact with the worlds of the other fellows. From this reciprocal act of sharing and discovery, a new interwoven field may coalesce. Within this field - art, learning, life and profound re/invention merge as a daily unfolding.

the FELLOWSHIP
at a glance:

In this age of world-building, future-shaping, and multi-dimensional expansion, the stakes of creation have changed; an artistic practice defined by self-interest will fall short of what our times ask of us.

Each individual carries a world unto themselves.
And yet, we often mistake our own world for a universal structure, normalizing our private models and projecting them onto others without awareness.

In this context, living, working, creating, and questioning alone is insufficient.

The TEMENOS art fellowship is a research environment for creators, in which every fellow engages two disciplines in parallel:

The expression of Self: developing clarity in understanding, shaping, and expressing one’s own world and vision, as well as the careful constructing of bridges that allow others to enter.
The receptivity to the Other: cultivating attentiveness, curiosity, sensitivity, and tolerance - the capacity to perceive and engage worlds radically different from one’s own.

This double practice is essential.

At the root of creation (and of all real encounter) is the fundamental duality of Self and Other.
Love is the force that evolves us toward union, across the schism of this duality.
To love, then, is to learn how to both know and offer oneself, and how to recognize, access, and honor the other.

The TEMENOS art fellowship is structured to cultivate both sides of this work:

the precision of the offering of Self (within individual creative practice), and the depth of reception of the Other (within a shared collective research).

Throughout the fellowship, we will invent and refine the tools that allow these twin disciplines, of creative agency and relational intelligence, to grow stronger in tandem.

The implications are immense.

IF we (as human beings on a broad scale) can hold both dimensions - Self and Other - in conscious balance, we become capable of facing the future’s challenges together:
We can develop a true respect and appreciation for difference, rather than a fear of it.
We can anticipate and shape the consequences of our creation, rather than act in ignorance of its impact.

We can cultivate the forms of intelligence urgently needed to respond with care, inclusion, and ingenuity to the sociopolitical, economic, ecological and humanitarian crises of our time.

In this way, we hope that the work of the TEMENOS becomes a living response to the multi-crisis of today,
a contribution toward building futures founded on integrity, coherence, generosity, in the collective efforts toward unity.

a statement of SHARED PURPOSE

A new art.

Not about life,

but in life.

A new life.

“But we must not forget that only a very few people are artists-in-life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts.”

- Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul

our CONTEXT

We are living at the edge of multiple dissolutions—of definitions, structures, narratives, identities, paradigms. The artists, thinkers, and builders of this generation are not called to (only) produce reflections of a world in decline. We are called to birth another way of working - rooted, alive, and consequential. This project exists for those who feel that call: to make work and shape life in alignment with the deeper forces of orientation - love, coherence and clarity.

The TEMENOS art fellowship is an art/life-research environment, a collective laboratory, and a training ground for creators who are committed to crafting not only works, but new worlds. Here, art is not understood as only a cultural product. It is a way of working with perception, matter, power, and meaning. Creators move through the world with a capacity of understanding that develops through the work itself - and that knowledge is rarely translated beyond the privacy of 'the studio'. Creators sharpen their access to vision, will, instinct, passion and decisiveness. They harmonize the rational, nonrational, and irrational. They work beyond established borders - and by doing so, shift the terms of reality. In the TEMENOS, we ask - What kind of power and knowledge does creative practice generate? It may, in the end, be what we call love. How can it be documented, understood, and transmitted?

The TEMENOS is not here to prescribe or even provide, but to generate the conditions in which something real can happen. In a culture that prizes product over process, and visibility over vision - where many creators have been seduced by markets or disillusioned by institutions - we are returning to the root, to the seed, to the source. Only there will we find the love and freedom that propelled us towards our purpose when we set out on the creative path.

Love is perhaps not a feeling but a force of orientation - the unseen hand that guides the will, the quiet but insistent current shaping perception, action, and form. Love, in this understanding, is not directed toward a person, place or thing; it implies actively aligning with what one is drawn toward, what calls the faculties into coherence.

To ask “What am I in love with now?” is not sentimental when engaged continuously; it becomes methodological. The artist can train their discernment of this question - tracking the subtle shifts in attention and desire that reveal the guiding star of a work, a moment, a life. Love becomes an agent of vision. It makes creation possible not by providing content, but by producing clarity of direction. The artist does not merely express love - they are moved by it, shaped by its pull, and held accountable to the consequences of acting on its behalf.

our ETHOS

Creation is far beyond a product of strategy, taste, or identity. It is the process of actualizing from the deepest source of purpose - your seed, your vector, your field of attention. Each fellow commits to living in fidelity to their origin-point - finding it and cultivating it with passion, risk, and devotion.

Form is not how something looks, but how it lives.

Matter isn’t passive. It evokes, remembers, resists, reveals.

Creation means making with material intelligence - not just of the mind, but of the hands, the body, the senses, substances, and poetic prowess. What you make is a carrier of meaning, and the form itself participates.

Whatever the medium or discipline - we propose to function as an initial audience for one another, so that each creator’s practice receives inquiry and feedback while in development - always at the rhythm, and in the frame, invited by each fellow.

Lexical threads: Radical Creation, Source & Seed, Passion, Vector (intention) & Field (attention), Offering

Before anything can be aligned, it must first be unmade. Each participant is asked to enter by shedding inherited narratives, prescribed identities, and external systems of meaning - as well as assumptions, projections, expectations, and conclusions about what will or should happen in the frame. In this voluntary passage towards the void, clarity is not immediate - but gradually space is created for something yet known to arrive.

This is the first gesture of artistic research: to stand in the emptiness, and stay until the impulse or vision of an undeniable desire - this that we call, “the seed” - begins to appear.

We all come with different traditions or tools for this: centering, meditation, tai chi, forest bathing, prayer, breathwork, vocalizing, phenomenological reduction, mantras, labyrinth-walking, authentic movement, ecstatic dance… There are a cornucopia of options. Let’s lay our treasures on the table, and share what helps us stay close to the edge of the unknown.

Lexical threads: Disinheritance, Void, Listening & Curiosity, Discernment

Out of the silence, something stirs. Not a thought. Not a plan. A signal. The seed is not a concept—it is an origin-point. A specific force of orientation, shaped by what we love, what we long for, what we are willing to serve. A precise gravitational pull.

Each fellow is responsible for locating the true source of their inquiry and impulse, to discerning the seed from which their work, their choices, their world will grow. This is not quick work, but once it is found, direction becomes visible. Until then, nothing is ready to move.

Lexical threads: Source & Seed, Guidance, Vector, Passion, Devotion

Once the seed has been sourced, alignment becomes possible. This alignment is not aesthetic or moral—it is structural. It begins within self (all faculties - intuitive, instinctual, intellectual, critical, sensorial, perceptual, affective, volitional, etc.), and then radiates outward concentrically into relation, communication, environment, paradigm and beyond. To align is to become capable of moving in coherence - where vision, action and impact form a single arc.

This our unifying research methodology: Integrative Inquiry.

It comprises two elements:

Radical Creation - Fostering a seed sourced beyond enculturated, normalized or conventional programming towards its realization in the world.
Radical Inclusion - The integration of all parts of being in the creative act, in recognition of the multiplicity of the human experience. Everything that arrives in experience is relevant to the process, and is thus invited to participate (as a voice of value) in research and creation.

A note on shaping states:

Vision - our imminent story of reality - is shaped by state.

State of being, state of mind, state of energy or attention. And state can be worked.

Every encounter in experience - physical, psychological, interpersonal - affects our state. It is volatile. Artists and creators know this better than anyone. It is also profoundly consequential in determining the perimeter of possibility.

So, we train the capacity to recognize the current state - its mood, its perceptual structure, its orientation - and to discern whether it is in service of the seed we’ve chosen to cultivate. If it’s not, we work to shift it. This process, sometimes referred to here as "perceptual mutability", is a practice of re-alignment and a tool of ontological authorship.

Lexical threads: Alignment, Integrity / Integration, Concentricity, Vision, Field (Attention), Discernment, Responsibility, Devotion, Guidance, Sovereignty

There are no assigned roles. Each person is fully responsible for their rhythm, their impact, and their field. Sovereignty here does not emphasize individualism - it means the capacity to act with clarity within interconnectedness, and to remain present while facing differences, asymmetries and their consequences.

Everyone is responsible. Situated sovereignty names the ability to act from one's “source”, while remaining in dialogue with the collective. It demands discernment, and resists the subtle temptations of evasion or control.

We work with a simple model referred to as “The Spectrum of Engagement”. It looks like this:

[ Consumer (+ Provider) → Contributor (+ Facilitator) → Collaborator → Co-Creator ]

As most of us have grown up in a system saturated by consumerism, governed by capitalism, wounded by exploitative structures (and their inevitable pervasion of passivity, scarcity-mindedness, and power / privilege disparity) - finding our way into new worldviews is an ongoing effort. We simply ask that everyone strives towards co-creation (that sweet-spot between individual sovereignty and collective responsibility), and recognizes the problematics of transactional (consumer/provider) dynamics.

This means, first and foremost, the active dissolution of unspoken expectations, projections, and entitlement. As well as the clear expression of needs and limits.

Though we are all here to encourage and support one another, Temenos fellows will be selected by their autonomy in engaging their practice/s with consistency, self-direction and independence.

Lexical threads: Sovereignty, Responsibility / Response-ability, Discernment, Freedom, Offering, Difference-as-Opportunity

Atmospheres are not incidental. They are shaped—by attention, by rhythm, by what is said and unsaid, and how presence is held. In this space, the field is not a backdrop to the work. It is the medium through which the work becomes possible. Fieldcraft is the subtle, disciplined art of creating and maintaining the conditions in which emergence can occur. It includes silence, cadence, gesture, posture, space, tone. With sufficient acuity of observation, coherence becomes durable.

Methods arise through listening, curiosity, and devotion to possibility. Devotion is understood, not as spiritual performance, but rather as transpersonal activation - a way of tending to both what is within and beyond the self.

We trust that alignment within each individual is the first step towards field-resonance within the collective. Emergence occurs when relational conditions generate outcomes that are not attributable to any single source. This, in part, is what we’re after. The unexpected, beyond-the-sum-of-parts.

For this reason - we work in a proposition-based-structure. Everyone cares for “the vibe” and what it generates. (we call this care and skill "Fieldcraft"). Workshops, studio/process visits, walks, adventures, circles, experiments - these are not imposed or obliged, but rather initiated. It is up to each participant to sense what is needed (by oneself and/or the whole), then to actively propose and concretize it.

Lexical threads: Devotion, Methodological Research, Listening & Curiosity, Guidance, Oscillation, Void

The TEMENOS is not a utopic performance of collectivity. It is the daily enactment of creative agency within the mundane, banal, normalized and habituated realm of convention. The kitchen, the courtyard, the moment of disagreement - these are our sites of research. The lab is not elsewhere. It is the form our days take. The creative act is indistinguishable from how we eat, clean, speak, rest, play, celebrate, struggle, repair, and learn together.

Within this laboratory, we have the chance to develop an immune system to difference and the friction (or fear) it often creates. Diversity is utterly necessary, as is the shedding of dogma and the blindness it produces. This is particularly relevant in a world increasingly fraught with polarization and divisive othering. By engaging this work together, we may surface tools that serve far beyond ourselves as individual or collective.

The TEMENOS is a co-created, experimental, real-time research structure. It is not here to hold, host, or contain you - it is here to be built with and by you.

Lexical threads: Laboratory, Living as Method, Responsibility, Complementarity, Discernment

What if love is constant? What if love is already governing every action - every choice, every instinct, every vision - whether we recognize it or not?

Imagine love is not an emotion but a navigational force. To be in love is to be guided. Love is the constant foundation of decision-making. And ultimately, creation is merely a process of perpetual deciding : Wayfinding.

But love is not fixed. It is a perpetually moving point of orientation - sometimes conscious, sometimes inherited, sometimes distorted by cultural programming or unmet needs.

So we ask: What am I in love with now? And then: Is that the love that I choose as my compass? Is that the love most aligned with the voice of my source (the origin of our creative fire)?

We do not romanticize love. It is trained. We seek to build a life in which the same love that sourced the seed of our creation can govern its unfolding in experience. You may hear us speak of “world-creation” or “life-creation”. This is what we mean : becoming fluent in how love moves us, and taking responsibility for that movement. Love is not the goal. It is the compass.

Lexical threads: Love, Vision, Guidance, Discernment, Field (Attention)

want to dive deeper into our MISSION?

Life inside the TEMENOS
: a (minimal) structure

OUR ADVICE :
review all 3
sections &
their
drop-down
content
thoroughly
before
applying.

shared CREATIVE PRACTICES

shared DOMESTIC PRACTICE

shared CREATIVE OUTCOMES and PUBLIC OFFERINGS

(Individual Living Fields of Passion, maintained and opened for Collective Exchange/Encounter)

Each fellow in the TEMENOS art fellowship develops and sustains RESEARCH/CREATION Laboratories: living cluster/s of methods, principles, processes, tools, and paths that form the architecture of their creative world.

An R&C Laboratory is a body of inquiry and devotion through which the fellow shapes and expresses their vision of reality. In more simple terms : what they love through their creative practice.

Each Lab names and gathers the forces that enliven, inspire, motivate, and guide: the methods, questions, materials, disciplines, and desires that act as seeds of meaning and points of orientation.

Above all, the R&C Lab reflects the fellow’s ground of purpose - the particular constellation of loves through which their world comes into being.

Throughout the year, fellows are invited to OPEN their Laboratories to one another (through OPEN LABS): to offer access to their world’s structure and spirit, and to enter the worlds of others with curiosity, humility, and care.

The Laboratories are not secondary to the TEMENOS;

they are the TEMENOS:

a cluster of individual worlds held together by the force of mutual respect and shared commitment.

TEMENOS proposes that the future depends not on the construction of a single common world, but on our capacity to hold many worlds together.

(Having said that, we delight in the potential birth of Co-Created Labs. We understand this delicate chemistry cannot be forced but rather results from the convergence of shared enthusiasm.)

You will notice, on the La Source website, a section called “Research Labs”. Eli and Radu have placed their labs there, to be joined by all other confirmed fellows at the start of the term in September.

(Eli and Radu, though permanent residents of La SOURCE, will participate as fellows and peer co-creators inside the TEMENOS. They wish to reduce the host/guest role-driven dynamic as much as possible in order to dissolve the consumer/provider paradigm, and the dehumanizing mindset it produces on both sides of the line.)

Each Monday morning, fellows gather in two small 5-person pods (randomized weekly) for SEED SOURCING: a shared "storytelling" practice.

In the fictional, parallel plane of this story-space, the familiar social and physical laws are suspended. Each fellow is invited to speak from the most direct contact with their inner world - offering story, vision, image, or language that arises from the deeper current beneath surface experience.

The practice is oriented toward the sourcing of the seed: that initial pulse of freedom, imagination, desire and possibility from which creation emerges.

Each pod shares 1.5 hours of storytelling, followed by 30 minutes of shared reflection. Afterward, the full group reconvenes briefly for collective announcements.

SEED SOURCING is not a critique or a discussion. It is a field-building practice: a way of opening the invisible architectures of each fellow’s world to the others, planting the seeds of understanding that will grow throughout the week (and year).

Each Friday afternoon, fellows return to the same pods formed on Monday for the PROCESS WINDOW: a concise, concentrated moment of sharing and feedback.

Each fellow offers a 10-minute glimpse into their current work, practice, or research - not as a final product, but as an open window into what is unfolding.

This can take any form: a fragment of a work, a question, a micro-workshop, a raw reflection or discovery.

Following each 10-minute share, the other members of the pod respond with 5 minutes of silent and on-paper reflections - questions, notes of resonance, observation, or curiosity. Papers are passed to the presenting fellow as starting points for further exchange.

After the pod sessions, the full group reconvenes for collective announcements, and an open space for practical coordination or shared problem-solving.

The PROCESS WINDOW is designed to foster continuity: to keep the creative practice and field of research visible, moving, and collectively held week by week - without burdening it with formal critique or performance.

Process Visits (deep-diving presentation / feedback sessions of 60-90 minutes) can be requested and scheduled as needed by any fellow at any time.

Each week, fellows have the opportunity to initiate OPEN LABS: flexible, participant-led workshops offered to the community.

These labs are invitations — not obligations. Each fellow is expected to propose and lead a session approximately every five weeks, but attendance is self-directed, based on relevance to each individual’s practice and rhythm.

An OPEN LAB may take many forms:

the sharing of a creative method or tool
the introduction of a practice or research approach
a reading, a movement score, a philosophical inquiry, a material experiment
or the opening of a question in need of collective exploration

The emphasis is not on mastery, performance, or outcome; it is on the generosity of opening one’s practice/research to others.

All labs are documented for sharing.

OPEN LABS form the living architecture of the fellowship: a constellation of experiments through which principles, new techniques, questions, and capacities circulate between fellows, building the collective field without imposing a fixed curriculum.

What’s happening in your Lab/s?

What beauty, surprises, explosions, treasures or crises …

Show us.

Help us enter. Help us love what you love, even if only for a moment.

And archive, for your future self, what has happened in the progression of your work / life / love / art / vision.

Each fellow maintains a RESEARCH LOG: a short weekly offering that documents the evolving discoveries, obstacles, and insights arising through a purpose-driven creative practice.

The format is open. A RESEARCH LOG might take the form of:

a self-interview (ex. a return/revisiting to the point-of-purpose in the work)
a return to the story-space opened on Monday
a video-letter or direct address to the viewer
a reading from a current work
an open reflection on a creative impasse or challenges
a visual or material documentation of the studio or process

Polish, production value, or performance are not the primary concern. What matters is realness: the willingness to share the aliveness of your lab - what has emerged, shifted, or revealed itself that week.

Each RESEARCH LOG (in video form*) should be between 5–15 minutes and posted before midnight each Sunday.

All logs will be shared on La Source’s platforms, forming an evolving, visible archive of the collective research carried out during the year.

The RESEARCH LOG is not personal branding or pressure-hype. It is a way of participating in a field of research that recognizes the creative process itself as a generator of immeasurably valuable insight.

*You are not required to be visible or even audible in your video. Technical assistance gladly offered whenever needed.

La Source is set in a 17th and 18th-century "corps de ferme" - a collection of stone farm buildings slowly restored over the past decade (originally built as a flax farm and linen sail weavery). It includes a communal house, independent residences, creative studios, wellness area, gathering spaces, gardens, and surrounding forest, fields and farmland. The land largely shapes the atmosphere and rhythm of the day.

Individual + Collective Life

Each fellow has a private bedroom, though the individual spaces vary greatly (with either individual or collective bathrooms and/or kitchens). There are indoor and outdoor areas for solitude, rest, movement, connection and creation.

Life here is largely shared: cooking, cleaning, infrastructure, planning, and silence. There are few distractions. What you make here is influenced largely by how you live.

The space does not only serve the work. The space is part of the work.

As stewards of this site, we carry a responsibility to listen to the place itself (both the biosphere and the complexity of human histories and presence), to respect its memory, and to treat the land not as backdrop, but as collaborator.

the CENTER

The TEMENOS art fellowship takes place in a forested corner of western France, very near the coastlines of the Celtic sea. La Source, our campus, is located next to the village of Saint Thégonnec, in the Parc Naturel Régional d’Armorique. It is:

15 minutes from Morlaix (nearest TGV / high-speed train station)
30 minutes from Brest (department capital, and nearest international airport)
2 hours by train from Rennes (regional capital)
3.5 hours by train from Paris

The environment is rural but not remote. You will be living in close contact with natural cycles, the mild but unpredictable atlantic weather patterns, and the diverse flora and fauna of protected lands - (yet also within reach of contemporary life). The rhythm is both suspended (on campus) but connected (by location).

the REGION

“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes them its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks their own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through them. As a human being they may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist they are “human” in a higher sense - they are “collective human” - one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic forms of humankind.”

- Carl Jung

Applications open: May 1
Application deadline: June 6
Short-list Interviews: second week of June
Notification: June 14

(accepted fellows must confirm no later than June 30, and may schedule their arrival any time after*)

Wait-listed applicants notified of invitation by July 7
Fellowship begins: September 1, 2025
Fellowship ends: August 31, 2026

* SUMMER ARRIVALS:

Depending on availability, participants are welcome to arrive as early as mid-June in order to land, acclimate, and settle into the rhythm of the place. For those who favor a more gradual transition, this could be a wise choice.

Even beyond the great enjoyment of spending summer close to the stunning and wild coastlines of Brittany, for those searching local employment during the fellowship, these months may be important to assist with stabilizing life prior to the fellowship’s launch in September. These summer months are optional and self-directed.

The formal structure begins on September 1 and continues for a full year. All fellows are expected to arrive by the end of August.

the TIMEline

‘A fellowship’ (etym.- ‘a body of companions’ or ‘the spirit of comradeship’) - indicates an attitude of collective support for a shared mission. A fellow - from old English, is “one who shares with another”. This is foundational. The mistake has been in believing our lives belong only to us - the great myth in the cult of the individual. Our learning does not belong to us.

Economic, academic, and cultural institutions are often designed to emphasize the individual voice as proprietary. Whether or not you intend it, what you bring into this world exists beyond you. This is the creator’s complex responsibility. By living and working together here in the immersive environment of La SOURCE, this sharing is evident in daily life. Each fellow’s inspiration, feeling, realizations, doubts, questions, epiphanies, stories, frustrations, and various states circulate. And as every ‘arrival’ can be received as a generous opportunity in the creative process, the experiences of one become the resources of all.

APPLICANT Profile

Post-Graduate Bridge : This structure is ideal for artists and researchers emerging from MA, MFA, or PhD programs, offering a sustained period of intensive focus within a community of equally committed individuals.

WHO this is for:

Commitment : You are a serious creator - artist, thinker, maker, - seeking structure, depth, and challenge.

Practice-led Inquiry : You see your creative practice as a form of research - methodological, embodied, and evolving.

Art-as-Offering : You have a deep internal motor - creative, philosophical, or spiritual - that moves you forward, and thus you are compelled to build something impactful, generous and lasting with your work.

Experimentation : You are drawn to art as a way of life, not just a form of production or self-expression.

Autonomy : You are self-responsible, and have the internal structure to manage your time, projects, space, and energy independently.

Co-Creative Orientation : You are eager to share space, rhythm, reflection and inquiry with other creators (even if we all have, admittedly, an inner-hermit to also honor and solitude is a fundamental part of creation as well.).

Maturity : You have the maturity or groundedness to work through friction or ambiguity; you take responsibility for your impact.

Sustainability : You are practically capable of sustaining yourself for a year (financially, physically, emotionally).

Respect : You have experience with personal or spiritual inquiry and can hold yourself through complexity; thus you are capable of respecting perspectives, identities, and values different from your own.

Alignment : You are ready to engage the full complexity of self in radical creation and research - that includes somatic, emotional, relational, psychospiritual, practical, and intellectual dimensions.

( Who this is NOT for )

You’re looking for a retreat, normal residency, or a more traditional and transactional frame.

You expect or rely on others to organize your process.
You require external validation or frequent emotional scaffolding.
You are not comfortable managing your own time, food, work, and personal needs.
You struggle to respect difference or to navigate complexity, relational boundaries, tension, or feedback.
You view art primarily as self-expression, emotional release or therapeutic catharsis.
You prioritize comfort and harmony over depth of process and profound learning.
You are anything but eager to live the questions your work demands, no matter where they take you.
You are not able to commit to living in Brittany, France for one full year.
You are not at ease or interested in natural environments.

how to APPLY :

This is not a competition. It is a process of discernment - on both sides. The goal is not to prove yourself, but to open an honest exchange about alignment, motivation, and orientation. We're looking for common ground.

Do NOT delay or procrastinate by turning this into an overly formalized process. Most of us know this sabotaging-impulse. It is more important to send your materials in than for them to be perfect. Have some trust that we will enter the door you open to us.

Please prepare the following materials:

Letter of Intention : What are you currently working on - artistically, philosophically, spiritually, or otherwise? Why do you feel called to this structure, at this time? (you are encouraged to send this as a video, those written is also fine.)
Present Your "Laboratories" : After reviewing the existing Research/Creation Labs at la-source.org/research-labs, describe the core field/s of inquiry you wish to explore during your year at TEMENOS. This is not a project pitch. It is a way of naming the deeper orientation behind your work - what you're investigating, what you're listening to, and what you are offering as a shared space of invitation for the others to get to know you and your universe.
Work Samples : Any combination of past projects, documentation, writing, or creative work that helps us understand your practice. You may include works-in-progress. Include links to websites, portfolios, social networks, etc.
Bio / CV : Keep it simple. We want to understand your background, not your accolades. If you’d like to include letters of recommendation, feel free to (though it is not obligatory).
Practicalities : Send us your first three room preferences (in order) as well as your preferred dates of arrival.

Send all materials to : info@la-source.org

Subject line : TEMENOS art fellowship 2025 Application

Please include all materials as an attached PDF or shared folder link in google drive.

You’ll receive a confirmation of receipt within 48 hours.

the APPLICATION

“Living life as an artist is a practice. You’re either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.” You’re either living as a monk, or you’re not. We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output. The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world."

- Rick Rubin, from The Creative Act : A Way of Being

the FELLOWSHIP

APPLY

What are we looking for in the [art/life]-lab of encounter ?

Radical creation [of/in] the world is an act of courage that must be supported by practice and propitious conditions. We’re not looking for perfection. We’re looking for presence, commitment, and real direction.

The work is not only about what you produce - it’s about how you live, how you listen, how you craft vision and bring it alive in matter and form. The integration of life and art is possible. Through love. (No joke.)

This isn’t for everyone.

But if it’s for you - you already know.

The application is your first act of alignment with the TEMENOS. We look forward to hearing from you.

Vision. Rigor.
Purpose. Courage.
Determination.
Generosity.

APPLY

SPACE	DESCRIPTION	Monthly cost in €	AVAILABILITY
Main House (M1 north)	large private room; courtyard view; shared entry; shared bathroom (1st floor above library)	350
Main House (M2 north)	private room; courtyard view; shared entry; shared bathroom (2nd floor above library)	300	reserved
Main House (M1 south)	private room; valley view; shared entry; shared bathroom (1st floor above library)	350
Main House (M2 south)	private room; valley view; shared entry; shared bathroom (2nd floor above library)	300
Main House (M1 east)	private room, private bathroom	400	reserved
Main House (M2 east)	private room, private bathroom	400	reserved
Longère (L1)	private studio with lofted bed, kitchenette, private bathroom and private entry (tiny-house style).	525
Longère (L2)	bedroom upstairs, large open space (studio) downstairs, private entry, private bathroom.	550
Longère (L3)	1 room upstairs, 1 room downstairs, private entry, private bathroom.	475
Cottage	self-standing (private entry, private bathroom and private kitchen); wheelchair accessible	650

fellowship FEES

the details:

MONTHLY FEES INCLUDE: Lodging, all utilities (electricity, water, heat, gas, internet, etc.), use of collective spaces and wellness area.

Furthermore - with the consent of the group, the grounds, dome, stables, and summer kitchen can be used to host your personal professional activities (workshops, lectures, classes, etc.) with external attendees.

SHARING a SPACE: All fees listed here are for single occupancy of the space. If you are planning to come with a collaborator and/or partner with intent to share a space - please add 50€/month to the monthly cost (which will then be split between you). This option is only available in L2, L3 and the Cottage.

INCLUSION POLICY: M1 South, M2 North, and M2 South are prioritized for applicants coming from outside European / North American zones, and/or from contexts of political instability, systemic oppression, displacement or comparable precarity.

other costs:

DEPOSIT: In order to reserve your place in the fellowship, and secure your room preference - we ask for a payment of two months. This will be held as the first month’s fee and a security deposit, in case of damage, late payment, or early departure.

REGISTRATION FEE: 30€/per person

EXTRA ENERGY CONSUMPTION: We have calculated these rates based on an economic estimate of consumption of heat and wood. If you use heating beyond recommended levels, or burn an unusual amount of wood for the library chimney, sauna, or fire bath - we reserve the possibility to ask for an increase in participation. Electric cars will be charged for daily hook-up.

PICK-UP/DROP-OFF: If you would like to organize a pick-up for your arrival, let us know. You’ll find the fees lower than local taxis. Following arrival, all fellows are encouraged to organize car-share contributions mindfully between one another.

VISITORS: 15€/night

CIVIL LIABILITY INSURANCE: all fellows must show evidence of civil liability insurance.

CLEANING FEES: all fellows must return their private spaces to its original state before departure (otherwise cleaning fees will be charged).

CREATION requires as much concentration (as little distraction) as possible. For this reason, we're aware of the great invitation for all of us to find solutions together to support the economic realities of a life driven by visionary priorities, more than practical/material constraints. We propose the following possibilities:

We propose to build (together) a shared online platform where each fellow can offer and sell their own work - whether art, services, or content. All proceeds go directly to the creator. This is a collective effort to support one another in building sustainable, independent creative economies.
We recognize that financial wellbeing is a foundational part of a coherent life. As part of our shared time together, we may initiate peer-led workshops and conversations on topics such as:
– the story of money and creative integrity
– sustainable income pathways
– marketing and visibility strategies
– digital tools for artists
– navigating abundance without compromise
Fellows are invited to share their skills, experiences, and resources with the group. We approach this as part of a broader commitment: to support one another on the path of an uncompromised life - where financial health is seen and treated as a basic ground of integrative practice.

This isn’t peripheral. It is part of the real work: learning how to build lives that are structurally aligned with our values - and viable in the world.

The surest sign of a life guided by love

is a vibrant devotion to something beyond one’s own experience.

SUSTAINABILITY
of individual financial needs

Oui, suffisamment pour vous sentir connecté et aussi pour partager votre travail. Comme il s'agit d'un centre international, notre langue commune est l'anglais. Si vous ne parlez pas couramment l'anglais, mais vous souhaitez tout de même vous immerger, faites-le nous savoir et nous verrons les possibilités ensemble. Il pourrait suffire de passer l'été à pratiquer avant le début du programme en septembre.

Each fellow pays rent (rate depending on the space) and in addition covers their own food, travel, insurance, materials and equipment. There is no curriculum or programming fee as we co-create the experience together. The permanent residents pay equitable rates alongside the fellows. We have kept the fees to an absolute minimum in order strictly to cover the standing costs of the property’s most basic needs. Consult the fellowship fee section for more details.

In the summer of 2026, we will work together to plan the creative outcome of the fellowship. Its form will depend on the practices of the fellows participating and what is best suited (conference, exhibition, publication, live-performance, website, etc. - or some combination of the above).

This fellowship is not a closed loop. It is a zone of transmission. The work seeded here is expected to continue in the world beyond these walls and beyond the fellowship.

Each fellow has access to various shared workspaces, including the library, a large studio in the stables (uninsulated / seasonal), the dome, and the summer kitchen area. Expansive outdoor areas are also available (garden and grounds). Some spaces are best suited to quiet or clean work, others for wetwork, construction or noise. Space usage is negotiated collectively and adaptively. As L2 and L3 are split-level spaces, the downstairs (or upstairs) can be reorganized for use as a separate studio. We simply require that all spaces are returned to the state they were first found in.

Collectively and transparently.

Everyone is responsible to sign up for tasks, report on the hours, and update shared documents to share details related to completion/progress/obstacles, etc. The permanent residents (Eli and Radu) know the property and its needs quite well, so at least at first - they will carry out task assessments and record these tasks on a shared document for allocation. They will also help to introduce the tools and processes.

Tasks are typically related to the following categories:

Exterior: weeding, raking, care of the animals (we presently have goats, sheep, chickens, a duck, a goose), trimming the hedges, etc.
Interior: building repair, contact / follow-up with repair-persons, network maintenance, etc.
Admin: accounting, orders, taxes, billing/payments, legal/bureaucratic requirements, inter-institutional correspondence, website updates, etc.

These 5 hours of weekly volunteer time do not include the generation of creation/research materials or publication.

We engage volunteer hours for 2 reasons:

To keep the fellowship costs as low as possible.
To practice collective care and responsibility in order to un-train the passivity, complacency and entitlement perpetuated in most consumer/provider modeled “hosting” institutions.

Having said this, we understand that there is an asymmetry between fellows and permanent residents. We acknowledge this; we are interested in working openly to receive your suggestions and ideas, however the responsibility is ultimately ours (legally and financially), thus we must consider a broader frame in order to stay within the integrity of the project, its sustainability, and the continuity of work that has made it possible until now.

The project does not provide food; meals are entirely self organized. Assistance is typically very easy to find with grocery pick ups (for online orders) or rides for shopping. Bikes are often available to cycle into the village for shopping as well.

The main house’s kitchen is strictly vegetarian. Meat, poultry, fish and shellfish may be cooked in the summer kitchen. Collective meals may be proposed at any moment, but nothing is fixed or obligatory.

Each fellow has space reserved in the pantry and refrigerators.

We welcome applicants of all ages, cultural backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, creative disciplines, and life paths. We are, indeed, very interested in hearing from individuals who have been historically underrepresented in artistic and research contexts.

If you live with physical challenges or illness (or any other structural constraint), please let us know. We are committed to approaching each situation with care, creativity, and transparency.

What unites us is not similarity, but the ability to engage difference with curiosity and mutual respect.

the 2025/26 TEMENOS opens.

the TEMENOS art fellowship

an [art/life] incubator for radical* creative practice

the FELLOWSHIP at a glance:

a statement of SHARED PURPOSE

our CONTEXT

(Purpose & Theoretical Ground)

A note about art and love (a speculative dynamic):

our ETHOS

0. Radical Creation from Source

1. Disinheritance & the Void

2. Sourcing the Seed

3. Concentric Alignment & Integrative Inquiry

4. Situated Sovereignty

5. Fieldcraft

6. the Living Laboratory of Shared Life

7. Love as Orientation

want to dive deeper into our MISSION?

Life inside the TEMENOS : a (minimal) structure

OUR ADVICE : review all 3 sections & their drop-down content thoroughly before applying.

RESEARCH/CREATION LABORATORIES (the continuous work)

SEED SOURCING (Monday Morning Practice, 10 - 12pm)

PROCESS WINDOW (Friday Afternoon Sharing : 3 - 5pm)

OPEN LABS (Workshops - 2x/week)

RESEARCH LOG (Weekly Offering)

the CENTER

the REGION

the TIMEline

APPLICANT Profile

WHO this is for:

​

( Who this is NOT for )

how to APPLY :

the APPLICATION

the FELLOWSHIP

Vision. Rigor. Purpose. Courage. Determination. Generosity.

fellowship FEES

other costs:

SUSTAINABILITY of individual financial needs

Can I arrive before September 1?

Can I leave for short trips during the year?

Do I need to speak French?

Dois-je parler anglais?

Can I bring a partner / child / friend / pet?

Can collectives or collaborators apply?

Do I have to stay the whole year?

Can fellows host visitors?

Is there internet access?

Do I need a car?

What does it cost?

Is there any funding available?

What happens at the end of the year?

What kind of workspaces are available?

What’s the weekly schedule like?

You speak about a proposition-based-frame - but what does this word “proposition” include?

Can I apply as a Non-EU citizen / resident?

Volunteer Hours - how do they work?

Food / Meals:

Inclusion & diversity:

frequently asked QUESTIONS

an [art/life]
incubator
for radical*
creative practice

the FELLOWSHIP
at a glance:

Life inside the TEMENOS
: a (minimal) structure

OUR ADVICE :
review all 3
sections &
their
drop-down
content
thoroughly
before
applying.

Vision. Rigor.
Purpose. Courage.
Determination.
Generosity.

SUSTAINABILITY
of individual financial needs