Auto Italia’s Participation Artist-in-Residence programme supports artists to develop new work in close collaboration with local young people and communities. Over six months, the artist embeds themselves within Auto Italia’s participation network and place-based partnerships, working closely with participants to co-design and co-create a programme of workshops, talks, events, and mentoring.

Rooted in shared authorship, this residency model ensures that community voices actively shape both the creative process and its outcomes. This approach enables the development of ambitious, high-quality work that is co-authored by artists and communities alike, creating meaningful and mutually beneficial experiences for all participants and enriching the wider arts landscape.

Each residency culminates in a public presentation of new work that reflects the ideas, stories, and priorities of those involved. This platform empowers participants to shape artistic projects that challenge traditional modes of representation and foster greater accessibility within cultural spaces.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the programme invites exploration across visual and performing arts, addressing urgent issues of identity, social justice, and collective care. By weaving together critical inquiry, artistic practice, and community engagement, the Participation Artist-in-Residence programme cultivates new forms of resistance, empowerment, and solidarity.

Richard Pye is our current Artist-in-Residence, working with local TLGBQIA+ communities to co-create Bystander, a project that centres movement and performance as tools for resistance, empowerment and collective care. The work explores the politics of witnessing, the dynamics of intervention, and the urgent realities of trans and queer safety.