Residency
We aim to offer space and conditions for adults to engage in learning, unlearning, collective processes and artistic and creative practice. Because we do not wish to limit what might be happen here, or preclude what we can’t yet imagine, we resist precisely defining the scope of the residency space. However, whatever the specific focus, we emphasise processes that engage in mutually enriching dialogue with the land and the other processes taking place here, connecting with what is, and contributing to what is in the process of becoming.
Open Calls
Entropy / Syntropy
This experimental land-based residency will weave together the practices and provocations from Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (GTDF), the evolved pedagogy and holding structures of Banana Mountain (our democratic unschool), and unfolding rhythms of reciprocity with this land; a sprawling, semi-feral farm in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada where the Trevélez and Guadalfeo rivers meet on their way from the mountains to the sea.
The residency has no fee, no funding, no pressure to produce, and no pre-specified outcomes. It offers 4 - 8 participants an invitation into open-ended inquiry, a space to be with and feel the weight of complexity, complicity, and collapse, and to experiment with the tender possibilities of relating, responding, and hoping otherwise, in the company of others, with no guarantees.
This inquiry will be held within a simple container of co-living (shared housing, shared meals, mutual care, and consent-based decision-making), co-stewarding (15 hours per week of land work), and co-sensing (a weekly seminar using materials from GTDF). This container is intended to offer enough structure to hold while leaving plenty of room for personal and collective exploration and emergent possibilities.
This residency is for folks with a personal practice they would like to explore in dialogue with the land; who are drawn to the offerings of GTDF and ready to face complicity and collapse; who understand land-work as a way of being in relationship rather than a form of exchange; who do not need or expect therapeutic holding or retreat-style comforts; and who are ready to participate in the co-creation of a living relational field that everyone involved is responsible to, and no one is responsible for.
Entropy / Syntropy Cycle 1: Saturday 7th Feb - Sunday 22nd March (6 weeks).
Entropy / Syntropy Cycle 2: Saturday 25th April - Sunday 17th June (8 weeks).
Personal Residencies
From 14 September 2026 - 29th November 2026 we open the space for unstructured personal residencies, a context in which creative practitioners of all kinds can find time, space and supportive conditions to pursue and explore their practice in relationship with the land and its inhabitants, human and more-than-human.
Residencies can be anything from two weeks to the entirety of the period. Exchange will be defined contextually depending on the applying practitioners circumstances. This might include financial contribution, shared labour, skill-sharing, or something else altogether. Express your interest in the form linked below to find out more about conditions, the resources and spaces available to residents, and explore costs, in-kind-contributions, and forms of exchange.
Artist in Residence at Banana Mountain
Banana Mountain is looking for an artist / atelierista in residence to join their community for a 10 week period from 5th April 2026 - 12 June 2026, supporting young people to explore the visual arts, and pursuing their own practice in dialogue with a vibrant democratic learning community.
Unlike the other offerings above, this residency follows a clear programmatic rhythm, with a defined role inside a structured community. The artist in residence will be present in the space three days per week. Travel expenses must be covered by the artist. Accommodation and a stipend for living expenses is included. To find out more contact luke@bananamountain.world
