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TaPeTe/cheLA 2025 Residency


cheLA is an artistic ecosystem based in the Parque Patricios neighborhood (Buenos Aires City), which for over two decades has promoted creation, interdisciplinary experimentation, critical thinking, and knowledge production. The TaPeTe/cheLA 2025 Residencies are aimed at local and international artists who wish to inhabit a space of shared production, situated reflection, and cross-disciplinary exchange.

We believe that today’s cultural challenges demand more than just the production of works: this is why we focus on the creative process, emphasizing listening, collective thinking, and situated action. This residency is conceived as a horizontal work platform where each resident can enrich their practice through encounters, disagreement, and active collaboration across the different lines of action offered in this edition.


Key Points

  • Applications: from August 25 to October 5
  • Residency in-person phase: November 30 to December 13
  • Accommodation, workspace, and workshops at cheLA
  • A program with three possible lines of work
  • Residency fee: USD $2000 (two thousand US dollars)

Programs: Three Lines of Application


For the end of 2025, the TaPeTe team has developed three lines of application: Music and Science (exploratory residency), Written Tradition and Ensemble Practice (production residency), and Listening and Improvisation (geographic residency).

1 - Music and Science: Exploratory Residency


Research is composition: a line focused on the intersection between sound art, critical thinking, and science.

This residency centers on the development of ideas, interdisciplinary research processes, and creation from environmental, scientific, and philosophical perspectives. It seeks to host projects that challenge the links between music, performance, environment, and systems of knowledge.

Main Themes:

  • Sonic and conceptual exploration around ecological and territorial issues
  • Intersections between art and the social sciences (philosophy, literature, anthropology, sociology)
  • Connections with the natural sciences (biology, urban ecology, water studies)


Methodology:

  • Mentorships with invited experts from the artistic and scientific fields
  • Laboratory spaces for prototyping, critical thinking, and expanded writing


Open to: artists, composers, researchers, performers, writers, activists, experimental musicians, thinkers of sound and ecology

2 - Written Tradition and Ensemble Practice: Production Residency


A line designed to compose, rehearse, materialize, and immerse oneself in the act of making.

Intended for those in a stage of advanced or developing production, this residency focuses on working on one’s own or others’ works in dialogue with fellow musicians. With the guidance of tutors in composition and conducting, the emphasis is on realization, ensemble work, and a final concert.

Main Themes:

  • Experimentation with graphic scores, symbolism, and the development of a personal language that connects creative ideas with ways of scoring them
  • Analytical and practical study of expressive resources, both in classical contemporary works and residents' own creations
  • Systematization of compositional strategies: form as narrative element, timbre as formal connector, rhythm as structure
  • Deepening orchestration techniques for chamber ensembles: awakening new imaginaries through instrumental understanding
  • Professionalization in the art of traditional and experimental notation to independently manage the publication of one's creations in graphic format


Methodology:

  • Classes and mentoring in composition, instrumental writing, and conducting
  • Formation of ad hoc ensembles with guest musicians and cheLA residents
  • Listening, interpretation, extended technique, and collective writing labs
  • Final concert with premieres of the works developed, open to the public


Open to: composers, performers, conductors, arrangers, sound artists focused on musical writing experimentation

3 - Listening and Improvisation: Geographic Residency


Living the city as a score: a situated experience between active listening, collective action, and improvisation.

This line proposes a residency expanded into the urban territory, valuing listening as an artistic and political practice. Through walks, encounters, and exchanges with local artists, projects may develop in performative, essayistic, textual, or sonic directions, deeply anchored in the environment we inhabit.

Main Themes:

  • Reflection on systems that shape perception in a body
  • The biological time of learning and bodily evolution and its relationship with technology
  • Listening as a tool to reflect on ways of inhabiting the present and imagining possible futures
  • The environment as an active and attentive cognitive and sensory refuge in an overstimulated context
  • How do we relate to the sounds and vibrations around us and their impact on our bodies?
  • How does listening affect our social organization, mental health, and relationships?


Methodology:

  • We explore listening as a tool to improve quality of life across social, relational, spatial, and territorial dimensions.
  • Urban exploration: listening walks, bike rides, field recordings, collective readings
  • Improvisation and creation labs
  • Development of instructions, open scores, and site-specific actions
  • Two possible final formats:
    • CONCERT: Listening work + live improvisation
    • READINGS: Public event with readings, showcases, and critical listening


Each participant may choose their own focus: improvisation, listening, or a mix of both

Open to: improvising musicians, sound artists, performers, situationists, writers, experimental filmmakers, listening designers


Terms and Conditions

Residencies and Stay Conditions


The in-person residency will take place over 14 days, from November 30 to December 13, 2025. It includes accommodation, mentoring, meetings, workspaces, and activities related to the artistic context and the line of work chosen by each applicant.

A preliminary stage will include a series of virtual meetings held in the weeks prior to the in-person phase.

NOT INCLUDED IN THE PROGRAM:

  • Travel expenses
  • Transport to accommodation
  • Meals
  • Work materials
  • Personal documentation of works
  • Health insurance (international participants must obtain international health insurance in advance)


Residency fee: USD $2000 (two thousand US dollars)

Format


cheLA Residencies 2025 will be conducted in an intensive 14-day in-person format at cheLA's headquarters (Buenos Aires), combined with preparatory and follow-up stages involving shared references, conceptual preparation, remote documentation, and mentoring.

The residency includes mentoring by artists and specialists, shared workspaces, collective activities, creation labs, critical listening, rehearsals, and public exhibitions. The program offers deep immersion in the cheLA environment, its network of collaborators, and its territorial context (the Parque Patricios neighborhood), promoting a situated, interdisciplinary, and collaborative creative experience.

Each residency line — Music and Science (exploratory), Written Tradition and Ensemble Practice (production), and Listening and Improvisation (geographic) — will have specific activities. Intersections between expressions, methodologies, and modes of making are encouraged and intensified. The schedule includes collective moments to share processes, discuss works in progress, and build a vital exchange network among residents.

Applicants may apply to only one of the three lines.

Applications


Applications will be open from August 25 until 11:59 PM on October 5. Late applications will not be accepted.

Applications must be submitted exclusively via the online form.

Open virtual info sessions will be held to provide information, answer questions, and support the application process. Participation in these sessions is highly recommended, especially for first-time applicants to a cheLA residency.

Requirements


Applicants must be 18 years or older and may be of any nationality. The call is open to artists, researchers, musicians, performers, activists, writers, curators, scientists, and other cultural agents interested in developing a project aligned with one of the proposed lines.

Both individual and group applications are accepted. In group projects, each member must apply individually, indicating their role and connection to the team in the form.

Submitting a fully defined project is not mandatory: ideas in progress are welcome as long as they show conceptual clarity and development potential in the residency context.

Applicants must be available to be physically present in Buenos Aires during the intensive residency period in November or December 2025.


Selection


Selection will be conducted by a jury appointed by cheLA, composed of artists, curators, researchers, and specialists connected to the residency’s focus. The following criteria will be evaluated: alignment between the proposal and the curatorial framework, conceptual clarity, feasibility of the project within the residency context, potential for collaboration and exchange with other participants, originality and sensitivity of the proposal.
Selected applicants will be notified via email on October 15. The program may issue letters of participation upon request.
Jury decisions are final and not subject to appeal.

Commitments of Selected Participants

  • Actively participate in the full 14-day in-person residency at cheLA (Nov or Dec 2025), as scheduled
  • Engage in preparatory activities (readings, exchanges, documentation, references, etc.)
  • Join all collective activities (labs, talks, critical sessions, public presentations)
  • Produce a work, process, or artistic device within the residency framework (may be new or part of an ongoing project, as long as it fits the context and timeline)
  • Submit a brief final report (process notes, reflections, documentation)
  • Credit cheLA in all communications about the project, using official logos and text.


Dissemination


By participating in this call, applicants agree that, if selected, their names, collaborators, and project title may be publicly disclosed and shared in any format, medium, location, and/or platform chosen by cheLA, and/or authorized institutions, for an indefinite period of time. This excludes any commercial use.

Originality of the Proposal


Submitting an application to this call constitutes a sworn statement by the applicant, affirming that they are the legitimate author(s) of the proposed project and its development.


If the submitted project includes works protected by copyright and/or intellectual property laws, applicants to the cheLA Residencies declare that they have full and express authorization and possess all the necessary rights for the use, exhibition, public performance, and/or adaptation of such works. They also agree to hold cheLA harmless from any legal claims made by third parties in this regard.

Image Rights


Selected participants authorize the program, and specifically cheLA, to use all images and audio recordings obtained through filming, photography, and/or any other technical means, during the activities carried out within the program. These materials may be disseminated through any existing or future media channels, including but not limited to journalistic coverage, advertisements, audiovisual productions, print publications, public displays, the internet, social media, television and/or radio broadcasts, promotional materials, and other visual or graphic formats, both in Argentina and abroad.

The only limitation to this usage is any use that may infringe on personal honor. This authorization includes, but is not limited to, the right to reproduce, distribute, and publicly communicate the materials. It is noted that the images captured within the context of this program do not entitle participants to the remuneration outlined in Article 56 of Argentine Law 11.723 on Intellectual Property. In all cases, the name of the project and its authors will be credited.

Unforeseen Events


Any circumstances not covered by the above terms and conditions will be resolved by cheLA through the residency coordination team.

Acceptance of Terms and Conditions


Submitting a proposal implies full acceptance of these terms and conditions by the applicant.

Application Form

Link to application form: https://forms.gle/EhTFVpEZJDVe6GJE6