I spent years unable to understand how artists support themselves. I still haven't fully solved it, but I've stopped waiting for one big answer and started collecting the pieces. This zine is the first part of my collection: the databases I check, the programmes I use, the red flags I've learned to walk away from.
It covers two routes to support: art residencies that pay you (and not the other way around), and Erasmus+ mobilities that let you travel for workshops across Europe for (almost) free — a world I spent eight years inside, first as a participant, later helping organise projects. Here I collected my experience over the last 8+ years and wrote practical tips on how you can also find those opportunities for yourself.
This is not a success story. It's a working map, drawn from real applications, real rejections, and some real yes-es, including the residency where my board game Our Future Is Somewhere Here was born, later selected for Dutch Design Week 2025.
▲ The four documents that do most of the application work for you — and how to prepare them once, with care, and reuse them forever;
▲ Where I actually look: the residency databases and lists worth your 15 minutes a week;
▲ How to filter out pay-to-stay "opportunities" and other red flags;
▲ The Erasmus+ chapter: what "free" actually means, why there's no upper age limit for most formats, and where to find open calls;
▲ A Q&A with the questions I get the most;
▲ A tracker template and a pre-send checklist at the back.
▲ 27 pages + cover, PDF, instant digital download;
▲ Everything checked in summer 2026, treat the links as starting points;
▲ Read on any device, or print at home;
▲ First edition, 2026;
▲ Made with love in Nicosia, Cyprus;
▲ Part one of two (art funds, the fair-invitation trick, and collaboration as support) is coming in the next zine.
Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 — you are invited and welcome to share and adapt it for non-commercial purposes, with credit, under the same licence. Sharing beats gatekeeping.
Want the tracker that is already in the zine also as a ready-made document? I've designed an Excel spreadsheet with both tabs — the applications tracker and the opportunities wish-list — available here only for 3.50 EUR.
I spent years unable to understand how artists support themselves. I still haven't fully solved it, but I've stopped waiting for one big answer and started collecting the pieces. This zine is the first part of my collection: the databases I check, the programmes I use, the red flags I've learned to walk away from.
It covers two routes to support: art residencies that pay you (and not the other way around), and Erasmus+ mobilities that let you travel for workshops across Europe for (almost) free — a world I spent eight years inside, first as a participant, later helping organise projects. Here I collected my experience over the last 8+ years and wrote practical tips on how you can also find those opportunities for yourself.
This is not a success story. It's a working map, drawn from real applications, real rejections, and some real yes-es, including the residency where my board game Our Future Is Somewhere Here was born, later selected for Dutch Design Week 2025.
▲ The four documents that do most of the application work for you — and how to prepare them once, with care, and reuse them forever;
▲ Where I actually look: the residency databases and lists worth your 15 minutes a week;
▲ How to filter out pay-to-stay "opportunities" and other red flags;
▲ The Erasmus+ chapter: what "free" actually means, why there's no upper age limit for most formats, and where to find open calls;
▲ A Q&A with the questions I get the most;
▲ A tracker template and a pre-send checklist at the back.
▲ 27 pages + cover, PDF, instant digital download;
▲ Everything checked in summer 2026, treat the links as starting points;
▲ Read on any device, or print at home;
▲ First edition, 2026;
▲ Made with love in Nicosia, Cyprus;
▲ Part one of two (art funds, the fair-invitation trick, and collaboration as support) is coming in the next zine.
Released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 — you are invited and welcome to share and adapt it for non-commercial purposes, with credit, under the same licence. Sharing beats gatekeeping.
Want the tracker that is already in the zine also as a ready-made document? I've designed an Excel spreadsheet with both tabs — the applications tracker and the opportunities wish-list — available here only for 3.50 EUR.
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