Welcome to Tafaria Center for the Arts

Your art residency getaway

Create away from distractions cost effectively and efficiently

Imagine getting away from your normal routine to a secluded and inspiring location. And beyond resting and leisure, you get an opportunity to ideate, create and produce that art piece you have been postponing, make a film or a new recipe, fashion design, write your music, record and showcase it. 

You can now do all that and more at Tafaria Castle & Centre for the Arts. When residing with us on full-board basis, you get access to music and film recording studios, filming locations, visual arts studios, fashion and beauty studios, culinary studio, exhibition gallery, performing auditorium and digital content distribution, leisure activities and more.

Apply for your art residency here and create away from distractions cost effectively and efficiently

Your Arts Residency Getaway

See below the facilities available under each art discipline:

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Music Recording

1. Recording studio with a 64-channel studio live mixer,
2. Two vocal rooms, 
3. A 400-seater auditorium for performances and indoor bands/choirs recording, 
4. Make up rooms, 
5. A cyclorama for photography,
6. Outdoor shooting locations
7. Recreational amenities 

Visual Arts

1. 5 studios and outdoor spaces, 
2. Recycled materials/junk (plastics, wood, metal, fabric etc), 
3. Wood and metal workshop with basic tools,
4. Outdoor spaces within the centre for the arts
5. Recreational amenities. 

Performing Arts

1. Practice rooms, 
2. 400pax auditorium for practice, staging & filming 
3. Backstage spaces, 
4. Make up/changing rooms, 
5. Filming spaces
6. Post-production spaces
7. Fashion studio for costume making
8. Recreational amenities. 

Film Making

1. Wood & metal workshops for sets making, 
2. Fashion studios for costume making, 
3. Hair & beauty studios, 
4. Visual arts studios, 
5. Culinary arts studios, 
6. Post-production spaces, 
7. Recording studio services, 
8. Indoor and outdoor filming spaces and sets, 
9. Screening auditorium with custom screening and sound equipment, 
10. Linkages to ‘within community’ filming locations 
11. Recreational amenities residence. 

Creative Writing

Secluded tranquil spaces for retreat within the centre gardens, a lot of nature, meeting rooms, post-production studio, recording studios for podcasting, wifi

Fashion

1. Studio with sewing machine, 
2. Recycled fabric, 
3. Tailoring accessories, 
4. A large display room, 
5. Beauty studios (salon and barber shop), 
6. Amphitheatre for showcase/fashion modelling, 
7. Cyclorama studio for professional photography, 
8. Vast grounds and elements for photography, nature incorporating savannah vegetation, mountain ranges, rural villages for photography, 
9. Access to local community and students for modelling, 
10. Other workshops such as wood and metal and filming studios
11. Recreational facilities.

Culinary

1. A kitchen fitted with preparation areas, gas burners, rotisserie and other general amenities, 
2. Additional cooking facilities at the main kitchen, 
3. A canteen for menu pre-testing, 
4. Access to locally grown fresh ingredients (mainly picked fresh from local farms within the community)
5. Recreational facilities

Previous Artists in Residence

Gallery

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A CALL TO VISUAL CREATIVES (ARTISTS)
JULY 2023

Addressing Non-Biodegradable Waste in Rural Kenya and its Townships

This is a call from Tafaria Center for the Arts. The Center was established 10years ago to, among other things, inspire social-economic, cultural and environmental transformation through the arts.

We observe that the rapid increase in the consumption of processed foods in rural Kenya and its townships has resulted in a staggering rise in non-biodegradable waste. With no waste management culture or infrastructure in place, plastics and glass are now visible everywhere, causing harm to our precious environment.

We are deeply concerned and determined to intervene through the the arts.

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary of providing art residencies to local and international artists and having identified the above problem in our community, we are happy to invite visual creatives to submit proposals for a sponsored residency at Tafaria Center for the Arts and create solutions to sustainably address it.

Residency Objectives

We aim to collaborate with the local community to create innovative solutions that will:

1. Educate and sensitize rural communities on non-biodegradable waste management through the arts.
2. Design artistic concepts that promote long-term behavior change and sustainable practices.
3. Develop scalable solutions to effectively manage this problem in similar geographies.
4. Create participatory public installations that utilize the waste on a large scale.
5. Craft aesthetically appealing concepts that have strong affinity with local communities to inspire rapid adoption.

The art residency process

The selected artist(s) will embark on an extraordinary journey that includes:

1. A fully sponsored one-month art residency at Tafaria Center for the Arts, covering accommodation, meals, per diem, materials (with a preference for recycled materials), community access logistics, process documentation, and showcasing opportunities.
2. The residency will take the following approach:
· An immersive research phase within the local community,
· Ideation phase on application solutions
· Prototype development
· Installations in collaboration with community members.
3. Upon successful completion of this phase, it is expected that the artist(s) will take technical leadership in scaling the concept once the scaling funding has been secured.

Please note:

1. That this call is open to individual artists or collaborations of up to two artists. 
2. Artists should on application indicate their preferred month of residency between August and November 2023.
3. This call is open to both local and international artists. Collaboration between local and international artists highly recommended.
4. That objective 1 & 2 above may entail collaboration with non-visual artists e.g. with performing artists etc, while 5 may include botanists
5. Application form is here: www.tafaria.com/arts
6. Further enquiries through thearts@tafaria.com
7. Deadline for applications is July 30th. 
Lookout for similar calls on other social and economic challenges in due course.

About Tafaria Center for the Arts:

Tafaria Center for the Arts is a dynamic multidisciplinary facility located at Tafaria Castle, on the border of Laikipia and Nyandarua counties in rural Kenya. We firmly believe that the arts are the cornerstone of human endeavors. Over the past decade, we have supported and nurtured numerous artists, both locally and internationally, through our art residencies. Our goal is to foster the growth of the creative industry while driving social, economic, cultural, and environmental change. Our facilities include galleries, a museum, a 400-seat auditorium, music and film recording studios, beauty studios, wood and metal workshops, artist accommodations, studios for visual arts, pottery, fashion design, and culinary arts.

Join us in this vital endeavor to address non-biodegradable waste through the transformative power of art. Together, let's create impactful and scalable solutions that will inspire change, raise awareness, and protect our environment.

We look forward to receiving your creative proposals

Tafaria Center for the Arts

Download Call To Visual Artists (PDF)

APPLICATION FORM

Personal Information

By submitting this application, I confirm that all the information provided is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge. I understand that incomplete or late applications will not be considered.