Announcing our 2026 Studio Somewhere Funded Residencies!
We’re excited to introduce the artists selected for our 2026 Studio Somewhere Residencies.
Created to support Scotland-based artists developing bold ideas in experimental performance, these residencies offer time, space and practical support to explore work at an early stage. Funded residencies form part of our wider commitment to creating the conditions for radical performance to be made in Scotland, giving artists room to test ideas, bring collaborators into the process, and consider what the future life of a project might be.
Following our open call, we’re delighted to support the following residents:
Bea Webster
During the residency, Bea Webster will explore their experience as a Deaf person in the cochlear implant department. The work is rooted in their experience remapping their cochlear implant device in which they had to undergo several long tests involving sounds of beeping in different pitch, tones and volume without any accessibility provisions. Bea wanted to explore their relationship with the BEEP, which represents Deaf lived-experience against the ableist medical world. The BEEP will become an abstract entity in which Bea will fight against. Bea will collaborate with a devising performer cast as "the BEEP".
Kfir Lapid - Mashall
In residence, Kfir Lapid-Mashall will develop his new solo performance Arab Daddy بابا عربي. Unsettling his personal archive and family history, this work is the materialisation of Kfir’s conflicted Arab-Jewish ancestry. Incarnated as Arab Daddy, he desires a queer experiment in masculinity: one that is policed by family, culture, and expectation; one that is tied up in imperialist violence and nostalgia; one that can only be freed by flamboyant passions; one that must be boldly sought but at a cost. Working with collaborators, during the residency Kfir will study and train Arab Daddy’s voice, movement, and pulse.
Peilin Shi
For this residency, Peilin Shi will develop a reconfiguration of the Southern Chinese Hakka ritual of Bridal Wailing (哭嫁). Bridal Wailing is a communal practice among Hakka women, functioning as both farewell and protest, originating at a time when women had very little marriage autonomy. Peilin will investigate the tension between the historical specificity of the practice and its contemporary resonance for women and diasporic communities navigating displacement, precarity and belonging. The project will investigate how emotional connection can emerge when language is partially or wholly untranslated through repetition, mistranslation and vocal exhaustion.
Sweætshops®
🥳Party 🥳 is a new work in progress by Sweætshops® asking: is democracy doomed to be a popularity contest? The project examines how the internet has fundamentally undermined our interactions with the democratic process, confusing our ability to share opinions online with our ability to affect real-world change. In the era of fake news, AI-generated misinformation, bot accounts and targeted polarizing content, the future is no longer in “what can we trust?” but in “what do we want to believe?”. If we want to be tricked, is it a trick at all? Coining the term “complicit duplicity” to describe this new form of magical thinking, drawing on dream-logic, Masonic tracing boards and the symbolism of individualist birthday party consumerism. The residency will be divided into experimental components aligned with the Scottish parliamentary elections. Commiserations or celebrations. 🥳🥳🥳
Belladonna Paloma
Belladonna Paloma will develop HEADLESS, her most ambitious work to date, on this residence. The work explores the historical iconography of headless female saints, combining live instrumentation, choreographed movement, sung narration and sculptural props. Studio time will focus on collaboration with choreographer Zinzi Buchanan on the dramaturgical shape of the work and the integration of movement and painted fabric.