Living In The Play: nido is a sister-residency program to The Poor Farm Experiment in rural Wisconsin, USA. Founded in 2008, The Poor Farm is a site for non-commercial, experimental art exhibition, and artist residency, Living in the Play. The Poor Farm brings this spirit of experimentation and intentional community-building to the Umbrian hilltown, Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy.
This year, Living In the Play: nido celebrates its fifth annual artist residency bringing together an international consortium of artists to Monte Castello di Vibio. During this two-week residency, we individually and collectively explore the relationships between the social historical landscape, use of land resources, and the narratives of Monte Castello di Vibio and the surrounding region. Our explorations inform and guide our conversations as a group while contributing to the making practices of each individual artist “living in the play”, culminating in an exhibition of artworks and performances.
Participants are housed inside the village of Monte Castello di Vibio overlooking the Tiber River valley. Your residency package is all-inclusive, providing welcome and departure services with airport transfer from the Rome Fiumicino, Leonardo Da Vinci Airport (FCO) aboard our private bus, single occupancy accommodations with shared bath (a wide range of upgrades with private bath are available), studio space, 3 meals per day, Prosecco brunch and dinner on Saturday and Sunday (no meals are served on our excursion days). This residency includes three excursion days in the first week. Of course, 24/7 access to facilities and 24/7 bi-lingual support are provided.
This year we celebrate a dialogue of vision and attention across centuries with the inaugural Poor Farm Biennale in Monte Castello di Vibio (MCV) and the Jubilee Year of St. Francis, eight centuries since his death.
The Poor Farm Biennale in MCV features the work of artist Kay Rosen installed throughout the village. Through painting, wall works, drawing and collage, Rosen’s work explores and subverts the potential of linguistic form, revealing the slippage of meaning with acts of reading, misreading, and rereading. This exhibition is in regional conversation with the work and environments initiated by two preceding American conceptualists who developed visual vocabularies influenced by the tradition of Umbrian frescoes, cultural history, and the physical environment of the region: artists Sol LeWitt and Brian O’Doherty. 
Reflecting on and extending this conversation of intentional practice between centuries, Living in The Play: nido V will visit sites in the nearby towns of Spoleto and Todi, where LeWitt and O’Doherty developed their site-responsive practices respectively. We will pilgrimage to the frescoes in the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi, including Giotto’s influential murals depicting the story of St. Francis, narrating his acts of care and devotion. We will spend time with the sanctuary caves and grottoes on the forest walk at Eremo delle Carceri and view the infirmary inside the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli where St. Francis passed in 1226. We will visit the meandering grounds of Parco dei Mostri at Sacro Basco, occupied by monstrous sculptures carved with love from the bedrock in the mannerist style of the 16th century. From there, we journey to Il Giardino dei Tarocchi, a life work by the artist Niki de Saint Phalle, a pioneering female voice in 20th century art.
.
Mark Jeffery (B. 1973, UK) is a performance artist and Full Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). A former Goat Island member, he co-founded Anatomical Theatres of Mixed Reality in 2012. He co-directs the Living in the Play Residency at The Poor Farm in Wisconsin. Since 2023, he has also co-led the nido Residency in Italy.
Excursion #1
Studio Engagement
Excursion #2
Studio Engagement and National Holiday, Ferragosto
Studio Engagement and National Holiday, Ferragosto
Excursion #3
The Collective Studio
The Collective Studio
The Collective Studio
