Image: Matilda Rahm
Southnord Residency Programme
About The Programme
As an artist-run platform, Southnord is deeply committed to fostering and nurturing artistic ideas, particularly within the visual arts. In our ongoing efforts to make space for new creative projects to flourish, we are thrilled to introduce the Southnord Residency Programme. The programme serves as a vital bridge, connecting Afro-diasporic artists situated in the Nordics* to contemporary art scenes on the Africa continent. We hope this offering leads to journeys of self-discovery and artistic exploration in a context quite unlike the one we live in. Through this immersive experience, residents will engage with the soil that holds our heritage and forge new relationships with fellow artists and curators. With a two-month residency period during the fall/winter season (October-January), our goal is for participants to return with a renewed sense of hope, inspiration, and artistic vitality.
Southnord’s long-term ambition is to develop relationships with multiple partners all across the continent and expand our offering from one residency spot to several, as and when funding permits. To this end, we will be hosting a series of webinars during 2025 featuring some of the amazing independent art spaces operating in different countries.
*This programme is only open to artists of African descent situated or born in the Nordics.
Our Residency Partner
We are excited to collaborate with the Lusaka Contemporary Art Centre (LuCAC), in Zambia, as our first residency partner. LuCAC is a private non-profit facility dedicated to artistic research, exhibition and resource sharing. As a hub for decolonisation, LuCAC encourages formal and informal artistic research and experimentation to challenge dominant narratives and interrogate common stories and histories. This mission aims to influence the trajectory of equitable and self-aware human development. It facilitates and promotes knowledge production relevant to artistic development in Zambia and beyond, acknowledging the hybridity resulting from migration, immigration, and globalisation. As an artist-driven project space and cultural repository, LuCAC increases the visibility of Zambian Contemporary art through radical knowledge production and creative experimentation. The center features a gallery with rotating exhibitions, a studio for artistic collaboration, a library for research, and art residency facilities for national and international artists. By fostering a community that challenges dominant narratives, LuCAC promotes self-aware human development and empowers the growth of Zambian Contemporary art. Through its programmes and facilities, LuCAC serves as a vibrant platform for artistic innovation and cultural exchange.
Applications for the 2025 residency spot have closed. Sign up for our newsletter to find out about our next opening.
Our Current Resident
Image: Max Diallo Jakobsen, photographed by Collin Riggins
Max Diallo Jakobsen
Max Diallo Jakobsen (b. 2001) is an artist, writer, and historian whose work is born out of investigations into material imaginaries. Experimenting his way through text, textile, and image, Max seeks to articulate a sensibility that is both intimately personal and violently global.
As a researcher, Max specializes in modern and contemporary African art, cultural and political history, with a particular emphasis on the independence eras of the 1960s and 70s. His thesis on the history of indigo textile traditions in Guinea, earned him the Henry Richardson Labouisse 1926 Prize. An early version of BLUEPRINTS was previewed at the 19th Triennial Symposium of African Art in Chicago, IL in August 2024. Max is also a Tender Photo Editorial Fellow, where he researches and writes about African photography.
As an extension of his research, Max has co-curated exhibitions in Princeton and New York. With the support of a Projects for Peace Grant, he co-led IMAG(IN)E: The Black Photographic Tradition through Flux, a film photography summer program in The Bronx that culminated in the group exhibition CYPHER. Max has also contributed writing for exhibitions, including Juan Arango Palacios at Galerie Revel and Samuel Nnorom at Art Antwerp. He is currently developing exhibitions in Paris with the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, at the University of Johannesburg’s FADA Gallery with the ARAK Collection, and a group show in Conakry.
In his art practice, Max contends with themes of memory and migration, across mediums including printmaking, sculpture and video. He has presented work in several group exhibitions, including Sound Images organized by Tina Campt and Exceed Your Vision curated by James Welling. Max is a recipient of the Alex Adam ‘07 Award from the Lewis Center for the Arts .
Max holds an A.B. in History, African Studies & Visual Arts from Princeton University, where he served as President of the African Students Association and worked at the Institute for International and Regional Studies. Upon graduation, he received the Student Leader of the Year Award, African Vanguard Award, and the Spirit of Princeton Award.