Feb 9, 2026
Call for Applications: »Zwangsarbeit/en – Work Force/d« Residencies
Barackenlager in der heutigen Jugendfarm Möhringen, Möhringen-Kaltental
Artistic Residencies at Sites of Forced Labor in Stuttgart
Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Coordination Office for Remembrance Culture of the City of Stuttgart are awarding two artistic residency fellowships, each lasting six months, for the period from July 2026 to June 2027. The fellowships are open to both international artists and artists based in the Stuttgart region working in the fields of visual art and art in public space. The aim is to produce a site-specific artistic work in public space that fosters mediation and accessibility to one or more concrete sites of forced labor for the city’s residents.
»Zwangsarbeit/en – Work Force/d« places sites of National Socialist forced labor in Stuttgart at the center of an artistic exploration. Between 1939 and 1945, tens of thousands of people from across Europe were deployed as forced laborers in Stuttgart – in industry, construction, agriculture, public institutions, and private households, often under inhumane conditions. The sites of this forced labor were part of everyday urban life. Many of them still exist today, yet are barely recognizable as places of violence, exploitation, and disenfranchisement.
Within the framework of the residencies, these sites are to be made legible again through artistic interventions and mediation formats – not as closed historical settings, but as spaces that are newly questioned and collectively negotiated within today’s urban environment. What stories, traces, and ruptures are inscribed in them? How do the experiences of forced labor continue to resonate in biographies, family memories, and social structures to this day? And how can connections be drawn from these historical sites to contemporary forms of coerced, dependent, or precarious labor – without simplistic equivalences, but with critical attentiveness to continuities and shifts?
Memory culture is understood here as an open, dialogical process that unfolds through the encounter of artistic practice, historical research, and urban society in public space. The artistic works and accompanying mediation formats are intended to open up spaces in which diverse experiences, memories, and perspectives come together – and in which the history of forced labor can be newly interwoven with present-day questions of labor, migration, exploitation, and responsibility, including within a global context.
Further information about the project and the fellowship can be found here.
Who can apply?
The call is open to national and international artists who are willing to engage artistically with specific historical sites of forced labor in Stuttgart and to develop new forms of remembrance culture. The sites should be located within the city of Stuttgart. Research will be supported by the Coordination Office for Remembrance Culture. A list of possible sites can be found here:
The fellowship is awarded with no age restrictions.
Applications from collectives are unfortunately not possible.
Artists based in the Stuttgart area are encouraged to apply.
Mediation
Mediation and accessibility are central to the project. In addition to producing a site-specific artistic work, the fellowship requires at least two accompanying public events during the residency, designed to address different target groups and to test a variety of participatory formats. The public mediation program will be realized in cooperation with the House of History Stuttgart, the Baden-Württemberg State Agency for Civic Education, and the Stuttgart Working Group on Forced Labor. The immediate neighborhoods of the sites of remembrance are also to be actively involved, encouraging them to understand themselves as part of a living practice of remembrance.
The fellowship includes:
- a six-month stay in Stuttgart, optionally divided into two periods
- project funding of €5,000 per fellowship (for research and production)
- coverage of health insurance costs for non-EU citizens
- exchange with an international, multidisciplinary community of fellows
- participation in events organized by the Academy
- support with local and regional networking
- access to the workshops (wood, metal, video editing/VR) and libraries of Akademie Schloss Solitude
Application process
The application should include the following materials (combined into a single PDF, maximum size 10 MB):
- An artistic concept that examines, activates, and (re)makes visible at least one specific site of forced labor in Stuttgart’s public space. The artistic formats may be permanent, temporary, performative, or participatory. What is essential is the connection to the site and its present-day social environment. (Maximum 3 pages)
- Artistic portfolio, optionally including links (maximum 10 pages)
- Curriculum vitae
Please submit your application by March 16, 2026, at 12 p.m. (CET) via the following link:
https://my.hidrive.com/upl/bICtJQWLc.
For content-related inquiries, please contact Franziska Weber, Head of the Coordination Office for Remembrance Culture at the Stuttgart Office of Cultural Affairs, at Franziska.Weber@stuttgart.de.
For general questions regarding the call and the project, please contact Diana Yasmin Haddad, Project and Events Officer at Akademie Schloss Solitude, at d.haddad@akademie-solitude.de.
»Zwangsarbeit/en – Work Force/d« is a project by Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Coordination Office for Remembrance Culture of the City of Stuttgart, in cooperation with the House of History Stuttgart, the Baden-Württemberg State Agency for Civic Education, and the Stuttgart Working Group on Forced Labor.