PPLG Residency 2025
Play Perform Learn Grow (PPLG) invites young people with artistic and socially committed dreams and projects to a fully funded residency in Lesvos, Greece. We are looking for people who are already working creatively or have an intuition, a glimpse for an artistic initiative that can impact their neighbourhoods and communities. PPLG Residency is created to nourish, sustain and amplify emerging projects and to connect their initiators with international networks of care and support. It is funded independently by PPLG, no external funders are involved.
In the midst of enduring crises, daily struggles, and fears we often lose the will to envision something new, for us and for the ones who will come after us – something that is not just a revival of the old, or a functional improvement. We often lower our heads. “It is what it is”.
What makes us instead look towards the horizon, towards what is not here yet?
As humans, we imagine. We dream. We envision. A new art, a new act. Maybe it stays hidden in a notebook, in a closet, in a “maybe one day”, in a “I am not good enough”. It might have taken shape in an activity, creating new spaces and new relationships in communities and neighbourhoods.
Through this residency we want to make space for you and your initiative. You may believe in it, you might doubt it. You may already have support, you might feel alone. We understand how hard it can be to create something new, to grow artistic and social projects in the midst of everyday demands and challenges and how essential it is to continue creating, with the difficulties. A spark, an intuition, an act. To break through alienation, create beauty, express humanity. To suspend the discourse on what is functional, realistic and to create stages toward making possible what now seems impossible.
We will invite you to immerse yourself and your project in a collective creative process, allowing your dream to get affected by the others’ arts and visions, and being prepared to let it go for something new to emerge, something that you would not have thought of.
Living in critical times of humanitarian, environmental and multiple social crises, we want to pause and listen to what you are creating in response, make a stage for it and help it grow.
When:
From Sunday 19 to Sunday 26 October 2025.
The group will meet online before and after the residency, creating a network of consistent support as the artists envision and experiment with their projects.
Where:
The PPLG Residency 2025 will take place in Lesvos (Greece), in a beautiful venue surrounded by olive groves and close to the sea. Lesvos is an island on the border between Greece and Turkey, Europe and Asia. In between countries, continents and cultures, it has been crossed by hundreds of thousands of people in search for a better life and it has been imprinted with diverse histories and languages.
What we offer:
Before the residency:
The group will meet online to introduce themselves, their projects and their neighbourhoods. Social artists from the PPLG community will conjure online creative spaces that will support people to deepen and develop their projects. The online workshops will be offered to all applicants, not only the selected ones.
Residency:
The artists will travel to Lesvos, will work and live together for 8 days (19-26 October 2025).
The residency will provide spaces to reflect on their projects and to learn about each other’s work, developing a plan for actions. We will work with creative methods, including participatory theatre, dramatherapy, movement, photography and performance activism to facilitate the group process. Each of the artists will also have time in solitude in the land surrounding our venue. There will be time and space for rich exchange and for silence.
Fresh homemade meals will be offered.
Travels to and from Lesvos can be offered (up to overall travel costs of €300).
After the residency:
The group will meet online. One-to-one mentoring meetings will be offered with each of the participants as spaces of reflection and development of their projects.
The participants will be supported to share emerging insights and possible challenges in their ongoing work. The artists will be also invited to the upcoming PPLG international conference to present their projects and the collective group process.
Who are we looking for:
– dreams, visions, crazy ideas, initiatives, enacted or not yet
– socially committed performing artists, theatre makers, musicians, writers, poets, dancers, visual artists, photographers, artists in fields still to be defined, with or without previous experience
– artists committed to work individually and collectively for the full process: before, during and after the residency
– artists willing to develop their initiatives with their local communities after the residency, with the support of the group
– suggested age is 18-35 years old
– the working language will be English.
About PPLG:
PPLG connects people from around the world who use play and performance to engage social issues, heal trauma, stimulate imagination and generate community. Founded in 2017, it has organised 4 conferences and various community events, bringing together more than 700 people from 50 countries. PPLG has always been funded independently and organised in collaboration with and in support of community-based organizations. Through art, performance, ritual and play it honours and celebrates the power of collective creativity to endure and transform adversity and to create new possibilities.
How to apply:
To apply to the PPLG Residency 2025, please click on the button below and send us the form by Thursday 1st May 2025, 23.59 CET
The applications will be reviewed by the PPLG Residency team and the selected people will be invited for individual online interviews in May-June 2025.
For any inquiry or questions, please do not hesitate to write to us: residency@pplg.org
