To make a donation, take a look at our "Auction" page! You can support the Mudhouse and receive limited edition Mudhouse SWAG as a gift for your donation. To switch over to the Auction, just click on the button at the top of the page. You can also donate directly to our fundraiser through the "Donate" button in blue. All donations are tax deductible & auction items are tax deductible minus the retail value of the item. Thank you for your support! 🥰

The goal of our Fundraising Campaign this year is to extend support for emerging and underrepresented artists to participate in the residency, through expanding our Fellowship program to offer more Full and Partially funded Fellowships in 2025. Additionally, we are expanding our programming. This campaign will also support a Special Projects session in 2025, hosting a group of artists to work collaboratively on a multimedia project that promotes climate awareness and sustainability, by focusing on the endangered status of the Neptune Sea grass in Mediterranean waters. It is our vision for the future to be able to support more special project sessions, and long term artist proposals, that further the mission of the Mudhouse. As an artist-founded residency, the Mudhouse Residency’s ethos continues to be to provide an increasingly diverse group of artists an affordable, international residency experience.

In 2015, our first year of operation, we had two artists join us. Over the last decade, we have slowly expanded and now host multiple residency sessions, and over 45 artists each summer. Through this experience we have come to realize that we bring life and economic vitality to a mountain village that was largely abandoned by its original inhabitants. The one and only kafeneio, that normally operates only in August, is now open in June and July because of the Mudhouse Residency. In the future, we look forward to hosting artist residencies not only in the summer months, but year round.

As we were brainstorming a name for the residency, we were inspired by the story of co-founder Varvara Liakounakou’s Agios Ioannis home, where we would gather in the kitchen for coffees, and sit under the century old grapevines on the terrace. It was built and renovated in a traditional Cretan way using lime and soil that the locals call “λασπόσπιτο”, “mudhouse”. And it was to honor this traditional building technique and celebrate the connection to the local heritage that the name was chosen.

The artists who participate in the residency are drawn to the natural landscape and the traditions, culture and history of the place. We offer excursions to Minoan archaeological sites, collaborating with archaeobotanist Carly Henkel at the INSTAP Study Center of East Crete for lectures and tours. Through connections with local artisans, we create opportunities for artists to experience new artistic mediums; combining historical methods, traditional practices and contemporary applications. In the future, we plan to engage local artisans to make workshops available in natural dyes, textile printing, loom weaving, ceramics with locally sourced clay, and traditional Cretan dance.

The Mudhouse offers its two-week residency sessions each summer for international contemporary artists working across a manifold of artistic disciplines, from paint, to ceramics, to experimental film. Last summer, we invited the artists Cassils and David Brooks, and curator Eleni Riga, as guest mentors during the residency sessions. Hosting an incredibly diverse, multicultural, multi-generational cohort of artists in each residency session, the Mudhouse encourages dialogues across traditional boundaries. We’ve had artists with Greek heritage join us, who have sought out our residency in order to explore their Greek origins through their artistic practice and their time in Greece. The Mudhouse residency provides the opportunity for international artists to experience, and be inspired by, Cretan culture. At the same time, the residency revitalizes the community and supports economic and civil renewal in the village.

Support the Mudhouse Artist Residency & Earn SWAG

By Mudhouse Residency Inc

Support the Mudhouse Artist Residency & Earn SWAG

Help Support Emerging Artists' Participation in an International Residency Program and Revitalize a Historic, Neglected Village