Welcome to Muse & Map!

So, you want to do an artist residency.

Maybe you've been thinking about it for a while. Maybe a friend went to one and you couldn't stop asking questions. Maybe you Googled it once, landed on a database with 3,000 listings and zero context, and closed the tab.

If any of that sounds familiar — you're in the right place.

WHAT MUSE & MAP ACTUALLY IS

Muse & Map is not another residency database.

It's a platform built by an artist who has been through this — the searching, the applying, the rejections, the acceptances, the grant applications, the flights, the studios in other countries, the feeling of arriving somewhere new and immediately knowing you made the right decision.

The information here comes from the inside. Not from brochures. Not from institutions. From someone who has lived it.

WHAT YOU'LL FIND HERE

A curated database of residencies — handpicked, not just aggregated. With context, not just links.

• Honest guides on the parts nobody explains clearly:
• How to find residencies that actually fit your practice
• How to write an application that sounds like you
• How to fund your stay, what to pack, what to expect

Interviews with the people who run residencies, curate them, and have done them — so you can understand the world from every angle.

And stories. Real ones. From the road, from the studio, from the moments that make this life worth choosing.

WHO THIS IS FOR

You're an artist. You make things — paintings, tattoos, films, photographs, ceramics, performances, code, words. The medium doesn't matter.

What matters is that you believe the world outside your usual studio has something to offer your work. That moving through places, meeting other artists, working in unfamiliar spaces — makes what you make better.

If that's you: welcome. This was built for you.

WHERE TO START

→ Explore residencies in our database → Read the guide: How I found my first artist residency → Follow along on Instagram: @muse_and_map

Cover Image: ‘Tahitian Women on the Beach’ by Paul Gauguin, 1891. Oil on canvas, 69 × 91.5 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.