Thread, the artists' residency and cultural center in Sinthian, hosts local and international artists for one-month residencies and is a forum for music and dance performances, study halls, meetings, and workshops. Its roof collects rainwater and its grounds provide space for Le Korsa's gardening program and tree nursery.
Thread is a unique place where art, culture, and architecture are supported alongside agriculture, education, and health. It has hosted hundreds of local and international artists and helped foster the Sinthian Women's Farming Collective.
The imaginative building, designed pro-bono by Toshiko Mori Architect and built by local contractors, was created for its community in specific ways: the roof collects and retains rainwater, creating an additional water source for the village and enabling small-scale, year-round agriculture. Its gardens were the first site used by the Sinthian Women's Farming Collective before they expanded, and are now used by our agricultural team for teaching and testing crops. A local beekeeping collective also uses Thread as a production facility; the honey is bottled on site and sold in local markets.
Besides being an uplifting space in which artists work on their own projects, it also serves the local population as a base for language and health classes, markets, parties, music performances, sports and more. Local teachers use its printer so as not to have write out all their exams by hand; children use its library for study halls or they draw in the art corner; friends chat with one another while charging their cell phones; thousands of people pass through it during the regional soccer tournament held on the field just across from Thread.
Thread's name honors Anni Albers, who, at age twenty-two, was instructed, by the great artist Paul Klee, “to take a line for a walk”; she decided to take thread wherever it might go. Anni said that this led her to realize that “you can go anywhere from anywhere,” and since Thread opened in 2015, it has been doing exactly that.
Thread has won an AIA National Honors award, was short-listed for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, selected for the 2014 Venice Biennale, won two Architizer awards, and was named as one of the best buildings and projects of 2015 by many notable journals, including Architectural Record, WIRED Magazine, among others.
The soccer field across from Thread, site of the annual regional tournament.
A pause during an Interaction of Color workshop in February 2020.
Passing through Thread in the evening.
Artist Patrick Joel painted en plein air in Thread's courtyards.
Le Korsa agricultural coordinator Abib Dieye watering Thread's test gardens.
Students who participated in a visiting artist's workshop held an exhibition of their work for staff and guests.
The multiuse tennis and basketball court, just outside Thread's walls, is the site of an annual sports camps for several local villages.
Moussa Sene, Le Korsa's program manager who also oversees Thread, inspecting a test rice crop in the center's gardens.
Visiting artist Silvia Rosi showing some local children some of her work.
Honey that is harvested by a local men's beekeeping collective is sold under the auspices of Thread.
Reading with some of the library's books.
An architectural detail of Thread's open brickwork, which took inspiration from Josef Albers's designs for brick fireplaces.
To learn more about the residency and the application procedure, please visit the Albers Foundation's residencies page.
For any questions, please contact Matthias Persson, Artist Residencies Director.
mpersson@albersfoundation.org
Thread invites artists and writers of any medium or style. Residencies last four weeks. There will be two artists in residence at a time between the months of August and May; the residency is closed during June and July.
Food and board, all travel within Senegal (from arrival to departure) and a modest materials budget are included. We do not cover travel to and from Senegal. In special cases there is the possibility of assistance from the Regina Tierney Fund for Visiting Artists.
A contribution to the Regina Tierney Fund for Visiting Artists could help cover an artist's travel costs to Senegal.
