Place and mobility in Italian artist residencies: towards an analytical framework

Purpose This paper aims to explore artist residencies as place-based cultural infrastructures that may connect artistic mobility, cultural production and territorial development. It situates residencies within broader debates on overtourism and alternative travel practices, such as slow and experiential tourism, suggesting that these programs can be interpreted as contemporary reconfigurations of the Grand Tour’s educational and cultural legacy. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an exploratory, desk-based qualitative methodology, it draws on policy documents, institutional databases, residency calls and curatorial texts to map the Italian residency landscape across three analytical dimensions: ministerial exchange programmes, foreign academies in Rome and grassroots initiatives in peripheral areas. Rather than positioning residencies as a normative response to the pressures of mass cultural tourism, the paper treats them as analytically distinct forms of cultural mobility whose specific temporalities, spatial logics and governance arrangements may produce particular conditions of engagement with host territories. Findings The exploratory nature of this research allows only provisional conclusions, yet some interpretive insights can already be drawn from the Italian case. The analysis suggests that artist residencies may be conceived as emerging infrastructures of place-based development, bridging artistic mobility, cultural production and territorial regeneration. However, the Italian context reveals a number of persistent tensions that shape and constrain this potential. Research limitations/implications This study sought to explore whether and to what extent artist residencies can be theorised as forms of mobility alternative to the flows of mass cultural tourism, offering themselves as devices for culture-based placemaking focused on the value of the experience of places. The findings support the view that residencies represent distinctive forms of cultural mobility and learning, providing frameworks for creative experimentation and the reactivation of territories. However, the analysis also reveals a set of tensions and limitations that challenge their broader theorisation as coherent alternatives to mass tourism. Practical implications These findings suggest that while residencies have the potential to function as sustainable forms of cultural mobility, their real contribution to territorial development depends on several mediating factors: governance models, funding stability and the capacity to foster long-term embeddedness. Social implications Artist residencies can be interpreted as potentially complementary – rather than alternative – to the paradigms of slow or experiential tourism. They offer situated spaces for reflection, experimentation and engagement, yet require the support of coherent cultural policies and public frameworks that recognise their hybrid nature: both artistic laboratories and instruments of place-based development. Originality/value Although exploratory in scope, the paper offers preliminary insights into how artist residencies may serve as embedded mechanisms for territorial regeneration and as laboratories for rethinking the relationship between culture, mobility and place-based development.