Play • Learn • Perform • Participate
International Artist Residency and Festival

January–March 2027 | Chiang Mai, Thailand

What if environmental action began with curiosity?

What if climate conversations could be playful, creative, participatory and joyful?

Plearn (เพลิน) is an international artist residency and festival exploring how art can inspire environmental awareness through play, imagination and shared experience.

The Thai word เพลิน means to enjoy, to become absorbed in an experience and to find pleasure in the moment. It invites us to slow down, explore and reconnect—with nature, with communities and with one another.

Rather than approaching climate change only as a crisis, Plearn asks:

How can artists create experiences that make people care because they have participated, discovered, played and imagined together?

We invite artists to transform environmental learning into an open playground where audiences become participants rather than spectators.

The Open Call

Artists may develop interactive installations, performances, games, workshops, public interventions, storytelling, movement, sound, digital media, ecological design, socially engaged work or other interdisciplinary approaches.

We are interested in work that invites people to touch, build, question, listen, move, imagine and collaborate—and, through doing so, reconnect with the living world.

Projects may respond to subjects including:

climate change and environmental justice
biodiversity and ecosystems
air pollution, water and forests
food systems, waste and the circular economy
Indigenous and local knowledge
community resilience
regenerative practices
future imagination
relationships between humans and nature

Projects may be poetic, experimental, educational, performative, speculative, interactive or socially engaged.

Who Can Apply

The open call welcomes artists, collectives, performers, designers, researchers, educators, makers, architects, technologists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, environmental practitioners and creative thinkers from all countries.

Applications are welcome across disciplines, including:

visual art, installation and public art
theatre, dance, performance and movement
music and sound art
film, photography and storytelling
digital and interactive media
design, architecture and craft
environmental and socially engaged practice
community arts and interdisciplinary work

Emerging and established practitioners are equally welcome. We are particularly interested in applicants who are open to exchange, experimentation and engagement beyond the boundaries of their usual practice.

The Residency

Residency period: January–March 2027
Location: Studio 88 Artist Residency, Doi Saket, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Residency dates are flexible and will depend on each artist’s proposal and the opportunities available within the wider programme.

Artists will have time and space to research, experiment and develop their work in dialogue with local environments, communities and fellow residents.

Studio 88 offers a setting that is both secluded and connected: a place for concentrated practice within reach of Chiang Mai’s artistic and cultural life.

Duration of residency

January–March 2027
3 to 8 weeks residency

Accommodation

Private accommodation, standalone bungalows, with a kitchen for light cooking.

Disciplines, work equipment and assistance Artists across disciplines: visual, performance, literary, digital, sound, and more. Creatives exploring environmental themes in dialogue with diverse peers. Practitioners ready to engage in exchange and cross-cultural learning Studio / Workspace Both private and shared, large and small. Darkroom, ceramics studio, woodworking, metalworking. For more information, visit our website. Fees and support

Variable, depends on the length of stay. Please visit our website or contact us for more information. Potential funding is available for specific countries and circumstances.

Expectations towards the artist

All exhibitions or workshops are optional and to be discussed and agreed upon between Studio 88 Artist Residency and the artists. There may be additional fees involved.

Application information

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScWBfuwZhLNOHLg6tvsC_AE4skVF-e-dvgbk62fdxB6qkLAYA/viewform?usp=header

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