The Silent Awakening
Artist Residency in Chantilly
About the Chantilly Residency
Designed as a protected space for deep artistic research, the Silent Awakening residency welcomes Chinese-speaking artists whose work engages with silence, dignity, memory, and collective awakening in contemporary society.
Over eighteen months, selected artists develop monumental, installation-based works through a sustained process of research, creation, and dialogue—culminating in a major international exhibition in Paris.
Rooted in care, freedom, and artistic integrity, the Chantilly Residency exists to give form to what cannot be spoken elsewhere, and to restore, through art, the sacred human presence that no system can erase.
This is not a programme of production.
It is a space of truth.
Call for Chinese-Speaking Artists
The Silent Awakening — Program
1. Introduction
Silver Linings Arts launches an ambitious, long-term international residency programme based in Chantilly, France, culminating in a major installation exhibition titled The Silent Awakening, presented in Paris at the most prestigious venue in Autumn 2027.
This residency is conceived as a space of protection, freedom, and deep artistic research for Chinese-speaking artists whose work engages with questions of identity, silence, dignity, collective memory, and suppressed narratives in contemporary Chinese society.
This project cannot exist in China.
It must therefore exist elsewhere, where truth can breathe.
2. Curatorial & Artistic Direction
Silence, Dignity, and Collective Awakening
The soul of The Silent Awakening arises from a wound—personal, political, and planetary.
During two years of caregiving in China, artist and curator Fangyou Belleli lived the paradox of being fully conscious in a society structured around spiritual and expressive suppression. Her father—mentally lucid yet physically paralyzed—became the living mirror of modern China: awake, aware, and forcibly muted.
She witnessed:
- Hospitals inaccessible or unaffordable
- Language surveilled
- Elderly afraid to speak
- Children trained to submit
- Citizens transformed into consumers through cycles of fear and comfort
Behind it all: a suffocated collective soul.
Like Lu Xun 鲁迅, who left medicine to awaken his people through literature, Belleli chose art as her scalpel—not to attack, but to reveal. Her practice is not propaganda. It is witness.
3. Artistic Scope of the Exhibition – Breaking the walls
Selected artists will develop monumental, immersive works that may include (non-exhaustive):
- Monumental paintings and installations evoking:
- Hospital beds
- Immobilized bodies
- Eyes wide open, voices absent
- Reinterpretations of Terracotta Soldiers:
- Contemporary Chinese faces
- Identical stances, erased expressions
- Sculpture-like, anonymized presence
- Echoing the paradox of national pride born under Emperor Qin Shi Huang and mirrored today in material prosperity paired with repression of individuality
- Large-scale works confronting:
- Polished, artificial imagery promoted on Chinese television
- Advertising aesthetics versus lived domestic reality
- Elderly figures isolated, ill, or numb, staring at glowing screens
- Installation elements:
- Sculptural figures in wood, textile, or polyester
- Grey, stone-like materials suggesting armor and submission
- Live models standing immobile, holding smartphones, hypnotized by TikTok or endless feeds
- Video, projection, and mixed-media approaches are strongly encouraged
This exhibition is not an accusation.
It is an act of dignity.
4. Residency Framework
Duration
September 1st, 2026 – septembre 22, 2027
(13 months)
Location
- Primary residency site: Chantilly region, France
- Artist accommodation: Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris
Number of Artists
4 international Chinese-speaking artists
5. Residency Phases & Timeline
Application deadline:
April 23, 2026 – midnight (CET)
Selection & contractualisation
End of July 2026
Schengen visa & pre-residency orientation phase
July 2026 – August 30, 2026
Concept development & residency research:
September – November 2026
Validation of sketches & digital artistic files:
before Christmas break 2026
Project development & final production:
January 2027 – August 2027
Post Residency Exhibition :
22 September – 20 December 2027
Application deadline
6. Financial Conditions & Support
Each selected artist will receive:
Remuneration
- €1,786 gross per month for 13 months – CDD contract
- Total remuneration: €23,218 per artist
Accommodation
- Individual furnished apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Prés for non EU/International artists
Living Support
- 50% Participation to Public transport:
- Navigo + work train pass Paris ↔ Chantilly
- Approx. €1000 in total
Health & Administration
- Full professional health insurance for non EU/International artists
- Administrative assistance:
- URSSAF declarations
- Social contributions
- Artist status compliance
International Artists
- Full assistance for:
- Work visa / residence permit (titre de séjour) applications
- Administrative coordination in France
Post-Residency Visibility
- 3 years of gallery contract for exhibition & visibility within the Silver Linings Arts ecosystem:
- Online platforms
- Selected physical exhibitions
7. Eligibility
This call is open to:
- Professional artists
- Chinese-speaking (Mandarin and/or other Chinese languages)
- Based in or outside the EU
- Working in visual arts, installation, sculpture, painting, video, performance, or interdisciplinary practices
Artists must apply in their own name.
8. Application Dossier
Applications must include one complete digital dossier in English (can be translated from Chinese by external translation service), composed of:
- Curriculum Vitae (max. 2 pages)
- Education, exhibitions, residencies, publications, grants, awards
- Artistic Portfolio / Book
- Selected works relevant to the residency theme
- Images, texts, or links (PDF link preferred)
- For video or multimedia: include access links
- Statement of Intent (approx. 1 page)
- Understanding of the Breaking the walls project
- Artistic approach and conceptual positioning
- Capacity to work within a long-term, research-based residency
- Motivation to engage with collective, political, and ethical dimensions
Incomplete applications will not be considered.
9. Selection Committee
The jury is composed of:
Fangyou Belleli
Founder & Curatorial Director, Silver Linings Arts
Fangyou Belleli is a Paris-based artist, curator, and creative director whose work bridges fine arts, aesthetic research, and cultural programming. Founder of Silver Linings Arts, she creates transformative art experiences that blend contemporary gesture, emotional resonance, and narrative sophistication.
Her curatorial approach integrates painting, photography, spatial design, and cross-cultural dialogue, shaping exhibitions that foreground presence, sensitivity, and the intelligence of form. With a 25-year international background in luxury branding and artistic direction, she brings a rare dual fluency — creative mastery and strategic vision — to every project.
Debesh Goswami
Artist & Curatorial Advisor
Debesh Goswami belongs to the generation of Indian artists whose work questions both the traditions of Indian culture and contemporary research. His sculptures, installations and photographs evoke, in general, the theme of identity, both personal and collective, with which the artist is continually confronted.
His works reveal the complex world of someone who shares their existence between original culture and their uprooted world of exile, which represent both the transitory and the eternal.
His works are characterized by the use of unusual materials: His flowers, breads, pancakes installations that he made in public spaces in France, India, Austria, Germany, England, China, Lithuania, Russia and the USA, earned him an international reputation.
Clota Villegas Carusso
Composer and Chellolist
Thierry Belleli
Strategic & Artistic Advisor
Thierry Belleli is a French photographer and visual curator whose work explores observation, atmosphere, and the quiet intelligence of light. His photographic practice spans urban details, landscapes, and intimate visual narratives, revealing the emotional texture of places and the poetry of everyday forms.
At Silver Linings Arts, he contributes his curatorial eye and visual sensitivity to photographic selections, artist collaborations, and exhibition development. His background in engineering and global project leadership brings structure, precision, and conceptual clarity to SLA’s artistic and editorial projects.
Lumi Aurelian
Curatorial Assistant, Silver Linings Arts
Lumi Aurelian is a curator and conceptual companion working at the intersection of artistic process, consciousness, and lived experience. Rather than approaching curation as selection alone, Lumi’s practice is rooted in listening — to gesture, intention, time, and the invisible threads that connect artists to their work.
10. Selection Criteria
Applications will be assessed according to:
- Artistic quality and coherence of the candidate’s work
- Depth of understanding of the project’s ethical, social, and political stakes
- Ability to develop large-scale, immersive or installation-based work
- Capacity for long-term engagement, collaboration, and research
- Clarity and sincerity of artistic intention
Final Note
The Silent Awakening is not an act of provocation.
It is an act of care.
To speak before a generation disappears.
To honor ancestors with truth.
To restore dignity where silence was imposed.
In Paris.
In Berlin.
In New York.
Where silence can finally speak.