Category: What’s on

In cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Norway, the Edvard Munch Studio Foundation invites one or more visual artists residing in Germany to a residency from October 1st to November 30th, 2026. The studio residency takes place in an apartment on the former property of Edvard Munch in Oslo.

Deadline March 10, 2026

During their stay, residents are invited to engage with themes or questions that in some way relate to the life and work of Edvard Munch.

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) still plays a major role in the cultural relations between Norway and Germany. He lived in Berlin and Warnemünde for many years and achieved after initial rejection, his breakthrough as a pioneer of modern art in Germany. After many turbulent years and health issues, he returned to Norway and acquired a property in Ekely, a then suburb of Oslo. There, Munch created an inspiring, nature-oriented artist’s retreat where he lived for 28 years until his death in 1944.

Today, Ekely remains a quiet, green district of Oslo where many artists have settled. In the 1950s, an “artist colony” was established there with 44 live-work units containing both housing and studio spaces for visual artists. The Munch-Goethe studio residency is housed in one of these artist apartments, thus offering opportunities to build contacts with Oslo-based artists. The apartment is located at the end of a terraced house with 6 units. It was built in 1959 after design by the famous Norwegian architects Jens and Wenche Selmer.

Whom we fund

The program is aimed at full-time practicing visual artists, with dynamic and contemporary projects and exhibition profiles who have been resident in Germany for at least two years.

A degree in arts or equivalent qualifications is required.

We particularly welcome applications from artists at an early stage of their career. In addition, we encourage artists who want an introduction to the Norwegian art scene to build up new networks.

What we fund

• Free accommodation in a spacious artist’s apartment with integrated studio in Ekely, Oslo:

  • • The apartment includes a 32 m² studio with large north-facing windows, skylight and a separate entrance. The living space has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, a garden, and a terrace. The total area is 102 m², and the communal garden may be used.

    • The apartment allows residents to bring family or partner, or to apply jointly with up to two artists. Note: Please be advised that the stipend and allowances will not be increased in the event that two artists or family members are staying.

    • The studio is suited for working within many forms of art media, as long as the interior is not taking damage from the work. Please note that all materials and tools must be provided by the artists themselves.

• Stipend: €2,000 per month

• Travel allowance (round trip from Germany): €500

• Residents commit to participate in up to two public events such as an artist talk, open studio, or similar.

• During the stay, the Edvard Munch’s Studio Foundation and the Goethe-Institut will offer professional advice and support, as well as networking opportunities to the art scene.

• After the residency period, the residents must submit a final report and complete a short evaluation. The residents will be listed on the alumni portals, the websites and social media channels of the Goethe-Institut and the Edvard Munch Studio’s Foundation.

• The artist will commit to mentioning the Goethe-Institut and Edvard Munch’s Studio in relation to the artistic production resulting from the residency.

Funding criteria

• Quality of the proposed project
• Artists developing practice/research relationships in Oslo/Norway
• Expressed and perceived need for the award
• Willingness to engage with the communities of Goethe-Institut and Edvard Munch’s Studios

Information on application process

Required documents

1. A letter of motivation (max. 500 words) including:

• • • • Why are you applying for a residency at Ekely?

      • What is your connection to Edvard Munch and to Norway?

      • Which project do you plan to work on during your residency that relates to the life and/or themes of Edvard Munch? Please provide a short project outline.

2. Current CV with links to your website or social media accounts (max. 2 pages)

3. Insight into your artistic practice: images (up to six) and/or links to video/audio excerpts (max. two minutes), as well as links to relevant artistic projects.

4. Idea for a public event to share your artistic experience through the residency with the community.

Please test links/images whether they work and are saved in optimum format for panel viewing. Late applications will not be considered and due to volume of applicants, feedback cannot be given.

Please send your application in English by March 10th, 2026, 12:00 pm as a single PDF file (max. 10 MB) to: Jeanette.Warnick.Danzer@goethe.de

Your data will be processed in accordance with legal requirements.

Please note that communication by email is unencrypted and may have security vulnerabilities.

Selection process

A jury composed of representatives of the Edvard Munch’s Studio Foundation and the Goethe-Institut will select the resident(s).

The jury will inform you of their decision by the end of April 2026.

Application deadline

March 10th, 2026, 12:00 pm

Contact

Jeanette Warnick Danzer
E-Mail: Jeanette.Warnick.Danzer@goethe.de
Phone:  +47 22 05 78 74
Goethe-Institut Norwegen | Språk. Kultur. Tyskland.

 

During August and September 2025, the camera-based artist Katinka Goldberg  worked at Edvard Munch’s Studios. For the weekend September 27-28 she held an Open Studio where she exhibited her project I Live Outside the World.

This was the first time Goldberg worked with large-format paintings in combination with photography and collage. For the exhibition she also collaborated with the singer, composer and actor Frank Havrøy on a new sound work, streaming out from small stone sculptures.

Thematically, Goldberg investigated how the memory of a person is linked to the tactile. The work at Ekely was a memorial work that dealt with her stepfather, the painter Stig Lundgren, and their relationship. As a strategy for remembering her stepfather, Goldberg painted directly onto photographs – painting herself into their common world again.

Deadline 10 December, 5 PM (Norwegian time) 

Apply here:  Application form

2 residency periods are available for application in 2026: 
1: February – March (8 weeks)
2: July – September (12 weeks)

The foundation Edvard Munch’s Studios offers a studio residency for professional artists in one of the artist apartments at Ekely in Oslo. The apartment is located at the end of a terraced house with 6 units. It was built in 1959 after design by the famous Norwegian architects Jens and Wenche Selmer. The apartment has a spacious studio of 32 m² with large north-facing windows, a skylight and its own entrance. The integrated apartment has two bedrooms, kitchen, living room, bathroom, garden and terrace. A total of 102 m².

Professional artists who need to work in Oslo for a period of time can apply for a residency. The apartment makes it possible to bring family or be up to three artists applying together.

Residency artists commit to participate in a public event during their stay such as an artist talk, open studio or similar.

The program include a small monthly stipend of NOK 3000,-
The foundation also covers travel costs up to NOK 5000,- *
*Please note that if you apply as a group the stipend and travel costs are per period, not per artist.

Read more and find more images here 

We welcome new artists to Ekely this November.

Kim Hankyul will work at Ekely for four months up to his exhibition SOLO OSLO, which opens at MUNCH on 27 February, 2026. He’s going to show his most ambitious work yet: a more than five-metre-high immersive installation suspended from the ceiling. His residency is part of our collaboration with MUNCH.

Four members of the artist group Ecophilosophic Dialogues will work in the graphic workshop in  November. Hildur Bjørnsdottir, Gíslína Dögg Bjarkadottir, Elva Hreiðarsdóttir, Soffía Sæmundsdóttir are all part of the group exhibition Bergmál/Ekko that opens at the Icelandic ambassador’s residence in Oslo on November 10.

Instagram:
Kim Hankyul
Ecophilosophic Dialogues

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Welcome to Ekely on Wednesday October 29th for open studios with artists Ragnhild Nes and Suleman Aqeel Khilji.  Nes has been working in Edvard Munch’s winter studio for two months, while Khilji has been here for the month of October.

Date: 29.10.2025
Time: 16.00-18.00
Place: Edvard Munch’s Studios, Jarlsborgveien 14, 0377 Oslo

Ragnhild Nes (b. 1993, Norway) works primarily with non-figurative oil painting, where text forms a poetic starting point for the painting. Colour and materiality are developed layer by layer through oil, pigment and medium. In parallell, she’s working with sculptures in metal, solid wood and clay, exploring them as spatial translations of the paintings’ compositions. At Edvard Munch’s Atelier she’s been working both in the studio and in the garden, where she has developed two metal sculptures and the series red red fire fire for an upcoming exhibition in Beijing in 2026.

Suleman Aqeel Khilji (b. 1985, Pakistan) is a London-based artist whose practice explores memory, identity, and the poetics of representation through painting. He received his BA from the National College ofArts, Lahore (2011), and completed his postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2025). Rooted in both personal and collective narratives, Khilji’s paintings engage with the shifting relationships between image, memory, and presence, bridging geographies of experience from Quetta to London and beyond.

This October we are happy to have residents Suleman Aqeel Khilji and Ragnhild Nes working at Edvard Munch’s Atelier.

Instagram:
Ragnhild Nes
Suleman Aqeel Khilji 

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In July,  German artist Claudia Kapellusch stayed in the studio residency at Ekely. Kapellusch’s stay was a collaboration with the Edvard Munch Haus in Warnemünde, supported by the Willy Brandt Foundation. Below you can read a summary of Claudia’s stay:

From the sound of the tiny
Work stay in Oslo Ekely in July 2025

Arrived with great anticipation and curiosity in the studio and apartment of the Stiftelsen Edvard Munchs Atelier in Oslo, I was now allowed to start it, my journey of discovery, my time in Ekely. Following the plan to devote my attention to the oldest plants of our earth, the algae, in addition to the flora of the Ekely Garden, I turned for the time being to their occurrence in the nearby fjord.

Soon, however, the first rays of sunshine of the early morning hours lured me to their enchanting play with light and colour under the apple, pear, and cherry trees between which Edvard Munch had once stood with his easel. This morning spectacle, in which the sun made the garden shine piece by piece in its summery colours, in order to “turn on” the light in it – finally arrived at the windows of the studio house – made me the first guest in the Ekely Garden.

This spectacle needs no audience, no applause. For my sake, I found myself morning after morning punctually among the fruit trees, enjoying the beauty of the moment and daring to try to capture nuances of what I had experienced.„….At best, this is about entrusting oneself to the still unknown in many ways, the game of nature.
…Such a deep sinking, a true surrender to an unpredictable event allows me to collect and process dust, sediments and other ground or ground components of our environment.“ I described the intention of my work in the project outline for my stay.

Dust is my material. The tiny particles that surround us everywhere, floating or lying like “skin” on all things represent untamed and in fascinating colour the limits of what is visible to us. Astonished I drew daily coloured, fragrant and dancing material from this small, so special world in Ekely. The naturalist and explorer Alfred Russell Wallace will have felt something similar when he wrote in his essay “The Wonderful Century” in 1898: „Half the beauty of the world would vanish with the absence of dust.“

The gnarled old fruit trees in the garden welcomed me into their shadows, were a link – dispensable was the pinch of dust that I brought with me as a small bridge between the two places from Warnemünde, from the beach where Munch painted in 1907 and 1908 and in whose immediate vicinity I work today, and Munch’s Oslo residence – between the past, the present and the future, and a hiding place at the same time. Unconditionally I was allowed to be a guest, undisturbed I caught particles, extracted, drew, photographed, immersed myself in works by Przybyszewski and Supervielle or could take time for the sound of the tiny. Even if I probably had some conversation with him, with the great painter, here in his refuge, I can not say how decisively this place, its silence, its colours, its light, its fragrance and the “invisible”, the tiny played a role in his work, which often reveals itself to us in such vulnerability. I can only guess, very much.

– Claudia Kapellusch

On 22 September, the Foundation invited the housing association at Ekely to see the upgrade work carried out in Edvard Munch’s studio. The chairman of the board says a few words about the work that has now been completed.

Director of the MUNCH Museum Stein Olav Henrichsen congratulated the work.