The West Dean College residency programme provides professional artists, writers, makers, and researchers the opportunity to work onsite for a period of one to three weeks. The resident artists engage with students studying at the College, providing tutorial support, leading workshops, and giving presentations on their practice.

Partnership residencies include collaborative projects with the De La Warr Pavilion and New Writing South. These provide West Dean students with outstanding professional practice opportunities, including group tutorials with curators, publishers, involvement with the fabrication of work, and invitations to exhibition previews and book launches.

Artists

Co-ordinated alongside the full-time Fine Art programmes, the artist’s residency is designed to support contemporary practitioners in developing research projects and studio-based practices. Resident artists for 2020/21 are: Sonia E Barrett, Coco Crampton, Soraya Gilanni, Sherie Sitauze, Michelle Ussher, and Sarah Kate Wilson.

Previous resident artists have included Gabriele Beveridge, Florence Peake, Tahmina Negmat, Caroline Achaintre, Renee So, Katie Schwab and Ross Taylor.

The College runs an annual joint residency in partnership with the De La Warr Pavilion to provide one artist with a residency and exhibition. A short video, produced by the DLWP for Renee So’s 2019 exhibition Ancient & Modern, can be found here.

The resident artists engage with students studying Fine Art at the College, from Graduate Diploma to MFA. This includes an artist's talk, tutorials and/or a seminar, workshop or group critique.

Writers

The resident writers engage with students studying on the MA in Creative Writing and Publishing. This includes an artist's talk, tutorials and/or a seminar, workshop or group critique. The amount of time expected to be allocated to these activities during a three-week residency is equivalent to two full days.

In 2020, West Dean College announced a new partnership with New Writing South to ensure that a minimum of 50% of their on-going Writers-in-Residence (WiR) programme will support writers of colour. 

Writers-in-Residence for 2020/21 were: Amer Anwar, Yvvette Edwards, and Salena Godden.

Previous Writers-in-Residence include Allie Rodgers, Anni Domingo, Rutendo Chabikwa, Willam Shaw, Elizabeth Haynes, and Izabela Morska.

Makers

The resident makers engage with students studying Historic Craft Practices (Musical Instruments, Metalwork, Furniture, and Clocks) and the Diploma in Art and Contemporary Crafts. This includes an artist's talk, tutorials and/or a seminar, workshop or group critique. The amount of time expected to be allocated to these activities is equivalent to two full days.

Previous makers include Linda Brothwell and Alec Stevens.

Gardens residency

In 2019, West Dean introduced a Gardens residency that aims to create links between the award-winning West Dean Gardens and the academic life of the College. The residencies are closely aligned with the Ruralism Research Group at West Dean College and actively seeks to ask how the gardens and wider West Dean Estate can be part of an expanded approach to pedagogy at West Dean.

For 2020-21, organic grower Claire Ratinon undertook a collaborative residency with the artist Sam Ayre to explore, dismantle and reconsider the gardens' and the college's collection through a decolonial lens.

2019/20 Gardens Resident: Stuart Whipps.