Nawat Fes

Nawat Fes artist residents will be expected to offer two opportunities for our community to engage with their work.

These could be public programs such as a talk, performance, reading, lecture, workshop or concert, or an exhibition of their work during the residency.

These programs are intended for local students of English and/or international students of Arabic, as well as the local community. Artists should be prepared to engage with our community in English or Arabic.

Two artists at one time reside and work on separate floors of Dar Bennis, a restored traditional Moroccan house in the old medina, tucked away not far from the main street.

Each artist will have a bedroom, a private bath, and a basic studio in the house. The house has wifi, a shared kitchen, a laundry room and a roof terrace with a view of the medina.

As the rooms in Dar Bennis all open onto an interior courtyard, perfect quiet in the living and work spaces cannot be assured. There are several great cafes nearby that also make excellent off-site working environments.

Nawat Fes offers residencies to U.S. and international creators in multiple disciplines, including:

• Visual and Performance Art
• Music Composition and Performance
• Literature: (Poetry, Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Playwriting/Screenwriting originally written in English or Arabic. Literary Translation from any language into English or Arabic)

Artist collectives of up to three people are accepted and should submit a single application. Studio spaces are simple, and our facilities impose some limitations for visual and sound-based artists.

Please see application information for details.

Apply at the February 15, 2024 application deadline for residencies from Mid-October 2024 through Mid-July 2025. (Residencies before this time have already been awarded.) The residency periods will be:

• FALL 2024 (Mid-October to Early December 2024)
• WINTER 2025 (Mid-January to Mid-March 2025)
• SPRING 2025 (Mid-March to Mid-May 2025)
• SUMMER 2025 (Mid-May through Mid-July 2025)

Residencies after October 2025 will be scheduled in a future application process. If you are interested in applying at a future deadline, please add your name to the Nawat Fes email list below and we will inform you when the next application cycle opens. (Please do not email us and request that we add you to the email list.)

Residencies are supported by the American Language Center Fes, which provides housing at no cost to artist residents, along with a 200-dirham/day living allowance (depending on the exchange rate, this normally ranges from 16-20 USD/day), from which artists will provide their own food. Half of the stipend is provided on arrival, and half at the midpoint of the residency. We can recommend some excellent local cooks who can come to Dar Bennis to prepare a variety of meals, including vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options, as well as traditional Moroccan dishes. Artists can use their stipend to pay for this service. The ALC will host occasional meals including other members of the Fes community.

ALC-ALIF staff and volunteers will be available on a limited basis to help artists engage with the local community. Artists will also be offered the option of a complimentary 10-hour course in beginning Moroccan Arabic, as well as optional translation services into Arabic for their descriptive and biographical material. Artists support the cost of their own travel, travel medical insurance, artist materials, any cost for mailing finished work out of Morocco, and all other costs.

Information on applying to Nawat Fes for the February 15, 2024 deadline can be found here. Notification will be in late June 2024.

Artists will be selected by a jury. We value diversity highly within our community of artist residents. Residencies are awarded based on the quality of work submitted, diversity of cohort, the proposal for intended new work, and the fit of the artist within Morocco and the Fes medina.

A high value is placed on linguistic exchange between the artists and the Moroccan community in Fes, which participates in American Language Center Fes programs in English, so artist applicants must have good conversation skills in English. Arabic and French are helpful but not required.

The Fes medina is a pedestrian zone constructed on sloping hills paved with aggregate cobblestones, and it requires a lot of walking on uneven surfaces.

Artists reach Dar Bennis by walking 10 minutes downhill on one of the two main streets of the medina. It is easy to find once one is oriented to the basic layout of the medina.

Dar Bennis is constructed on four levels and the staircases are narrow. There is no elevator in Dar Bennis.