Bodhi Khaya Residency is an annual two-week, funded, artist-founded, artist-led and process-oriented residency. It was initiated by a small group of artist friends who, after being accepted into international residencies, recognized a lack of similar opportunities within the South African arts landscape. In response, they established the residency in 2021.

The aim is to provide emerging and mid-career South African artists with a space to explore and deepen their relationship with the environment through historical, political, societal, and personal lenses. The residency encourages artists to make these relationships visible, audible, and tangible.

Bodhi Khaya Residency is run voluntarily by artists, no one is salaried or financially remunerated. We are operating with an alarmingly modest amount of funding. The continued existence is made possible by the generous provision of free accommodation by Bodhi Khaya Retreat Centre and by charging a modest application fee. Bodhi Khaya Residency is a member of SCANart  NPO 320-324, our fundraising body.

Artists at Bodhi Khaya residency immerse themselves on three neighbouring nature reserves, Bodhi Khaya, Blomerus and Platbos, in the midst of an intense reforestation project, surrounded by old-growth Afro-Montane forests, fynbos, streams and regenerative farming projects.

Participants are invited to explore, through dialogue, collaborative work and hands-on practice, how art can catalyze change—whether by nurturing sustainability, advocating for gender and racial equity, fostering social creativity, or regenerating lands scarred by exploitation. We envision art as a force for renewal, capable of restoring not only ecosystems but also our collective sense of belonging to the earth.

“What is needed is a new pattern of rapport with the planet. Here we come to the critical transformation needed in the emotional, aesthetic, spiritual, and religious orders of life. Only a change that profound in human consciousness can remedy the deep cultural pathology manifest in such destructive behavior.

Such change is not possible, however, so long as we fail to appreciate the planet that provides us with a world abundant in the volume and variety of food for our nourishment, a world exquisite in supplying beauty of form, sweetness of taste, delicate fragrances for our enjoyment, and exciting challenges for us to overcome with skill and action.

The poets and artists can help restore this sense of rapport with the natural world. It is this renewed sense of reciprocity with nature, in all of its complexity and remarkable beauty, that can help provide the psychic and spiritual energies necessary for the work ahead.” (Thomas Berry, “Alienation”)