La
Chapelle
Saint-Antoine

Artist
Residency

Naxos
Cyclades

Summary

2025 season

2024 season

Genesis

The story of La Chapelle is indeed a love story - or rather the story of several loves - each enveloping the next one - like Russian dolls which are discovered one after another - all entangled within a larger one. In this way the biggest story - or perhaps the first - is that of my parents, who met in April 1985 during an ordinary university party and decided three months later to travel to Turkey together. They packed two sleeping bags - a tent - a stove - coffee - cans and whatever else they could fit into the trunk of a Renault 5. That summer they never saw the Bosphorus. My mother’s father, Joseph, was visiting Athens at this time and invited my parents to meet him there. It was in that way that my father and grandfather met for the first time – in Greece. Joseph couldn’t afford very much. So the «hotel», as it turns out, was actually a brothel where he had booked two nights near the Plaka market. Neither the filth of the rooms, nor the moans of the guests could stop my parents from falling in love with each other, with Athens and with Greece.

They spent the following weeks travelling around the country - from Meteors to Cape Sounion - from Kokkino Nero to Kalamata - from Corfu to Naxos... They could not imagine that thirty-two years later they would return to this island with their three children - my two sisters and I - and that they would fall under the spell of an old ruined house hidden behind the unruly vegetation of an abandoned garden at the entrance of the Kastro of Chora.Soon they meet Father Georgios Palamaris - a young priest who - noticing their love for the old stone - made them discover the imposing patrimony of the Church that he is in charge of maintaining and renovating. This is how - one winter evening - my parents found themselves on a huge terrace facing the Agios Antonios Chapel and the Monastery which adjoins it. The place is unique - full of a singular atmosphere -dense and warm. They both felt it. It is an intuition difficult to describe or to express - a bit like the one they felt for each other when they first met - and a

a bit like the one they felt for each other when they first met - and a bit like the one they had when they passed this abandoned garden and ruined house. For several weeks, La Chapelle was the object of their thoughts. Their intuition turns into an idea: to rehabilitate this place to make it available for artists. That was in January 2021. In July 2021 - my parents - my sisters and I welcomed the first resident of La Chapelle Saint-Antoine - Marusya Borisova Sevastyanova - a Russian painter...

The family

Clémentine

A graduate in Communication, she has always been looking for ways in which to connect with others, as well as to show others vhow much she values them. Today she works as an agent for artists in the fashion industry. Eager for knowledge and understanding of the human mind, she has been studying for more than a year to become a psychotherapist.

Sophie

After spending 5 years in Montreal, where she obtained a Master’s degree in Business Administration, she joined the ESCP Business School to study International Business & Diplomacy. The adventure of La Chapelle Saint-Antoine, however, convinced her that Art is a powerful form of diplomacy. In order to reconcile her new convictions with her academic skills, she now aims to join an artistic institution with international influence.

Benjamin

Having just graduated with a Master’s degree in Business Law, he prefers to pursue a training in documentary filmmaking at Ateliers Varan rather than prepare for the bar. He directed a documentary in Corsica about the writer Jérôme Ferrari (Prix Goncourt 2012). After this documentary’s production, he retired for two years to write his first novel. Between Paris and Naxos he works as a journalist and focuses on his second novel.

Jean-Bernard

In 1985, he created a 3D visualization software company that wasbought out successively by large American corporations. He remained at the head of his company for nearly 30 years while taking charge of larger strategic departments. He ended his career as Visualization Software Vice President at ThermoFisher. A few years ago he decided to leave everything behind and retire with Ariele to the shores of the Aegean Sea.

Arièle

As a child she spent hours in the studio of her grandfather a painter. For her studies she chose a business school with an international trade program. A globetrotter at heart she always wished to combine her professional life with travel. She worked in a large French company then became teacher, where she was able to pass on her energy and experience to her students. Passionate about travel and eager to discover - she criss-crossed the planet with her family. But each time she found herself back to Greece.

Vision

«Although we have heart at work,

Art is long and time is short.»

Charles Baudelaire,

The Flowers of Evil

Coming from families of entrepreneurs and becoming entrepreneurs/artists ourselves - we know what creation requires in terms of self-confidence - personal investment - audacity - tenacity - rebellion - discipline - madness - intelligence - but also and above all... time.

Creation is to be where what has always been possible has not yet happened. It penetrates where no one has ever gone before and it is perhaps not a coincidence if the country that all creators cross is one of solitude - the one that opposes the individual to withdraw from the world - or at least to escape from their own - for a time... This country has as many banners as there are places.

We have decided to plant ours above a Chapel so that time and space - the two terms of this arithmetic that we cherish - serve to mobilize all the forces necessary for the birth of what we believe in—creation. But Man is not God and what he creates with his time and in his space is irrevocably inscribed in an era. Ours is in all respects decisive, crucial. Never in its history Man has been so urgently compelled to (re)tell his story; to (re)present himself, to (re)define himself, to (re)invent himself, to (re)mythologize himself, to (re)center himself, to (re)create himself. We are convinced that in order to go beyond our era and generate the next one it is imperative to grant ourselves the possibility of doing things differently - to try out otherness to multiply experiences - to allow ourselves countless initiatives - immeasurable failures - vain attempts - but also and above all surprising successes which - inevitably - will increase our hopes and multiply our wills. We wish to offer a

framework for these upheavals - to take part in these changes by stretching the time allotted for creation so that the heart that is at work in so many of you - creators - can show it to this world - and bequeath to the next - the courage that is and will have been yours.

GIULIA_ZANVIT_HABILLER L ENCEINTE HABITER LE COEUR (8)credit-Ykwis.jpg

Naxos

The island

Largest island of the Cyclades - strategic crossroads for many civilizations (Classical, Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman)- Naxos is still today by its central geographical position an important economic and social pole of the Cyclades archipelago. With a variety of landscapes mixing fertile plains - forested hillsides, swampy areas and arid coasts - Naxos has always been self-sufficient. Its ground water allows an abundant agriculture and its size a varied breeding. Ironically, the island has always been turned inland. The villages of Chalki and Apiranthos - historically the richest - and both located in the very center of the

island - are evidence of this. Attached to this nourishing land the Naxiotes pass on from generation to generation the innumerable olive groves - the impressive terraced vineyards and the secret orchards where they meet on Sundays to consume the fruits of a careful work.

The city of Chora

Chora - the main city of the island - has more than 7000 inhabitants. Built on the side of a hill - it houses at its top the Kastro - the historical part of the city.

It is made up of narrow streets - houses belonging to the local aristocracy as well as numerous buildings inherited from the Venetian era and influenced by the Catholic Church. For a long time it was neglected by its inhabitants who - for more comfort - preferred to move to the surrounding residential areas. Today the Kastro of Chora is the object of numerous renovations undertaken by actors willing to revive an exceptional heritage. The project of La Chapelle Saint-Antoine is fully in line with this logic of revitalising a district with incomparable charm.

Paris-Athens-Naxos

Ponts des Arts

The Pont des Arts connects the left bank of Paris (at the level of the Institut de France) to its right bank, (facing the Cour Carrée of the Louvre Palace). The result of a meeting between a French family and a Greek, La Chapelle, humbly, wants to be a bridge between two shores of Europe while also opening to the other shores of the world. To live in a country is not only to live there but also to have the possibility to take part in its destiny; to be, at one’s own level, an actor, a citizen. Europe offers its citizens the possibility of a de facto dual nationality. It offers the possibility of creating bridges between people and their respective cultures. To be part of this new territory, to take part in its identity, we have chosen the Pont des Arts. It seems to us that this initiative comes at an opportune moment for our two countries and for their artists.

Paris

Paris is in the process of regaining its position as a major center of the world art market without losing the vitality of its local artistic fabric, as has been the case for other leading capitals. Artists’ incubators are multiplying (POUSH Manifesto, Artagon, Villa Belleville, Le Wonder, Le 6B etc.),

French galleries are exporting more and more, and foreign galleries (large and small) are flocking there to establish their gateway to the European continent. In addition to a cultural sector historically subsidized by the State - the country is now open to large-scale private initiatives (Louis Vuitton Foundation, Bourse du Commerce, Lafayette Anticipations etc.). Today - a city with an already solid market and a still-vibrant ecosystem - Paris is reclaiming its image as a scholar and a city conducive to thought, reflection, exchanges and intuitions. Timeless and a little rebellious - it stands up against short-term or efficiency injunctions - which have proven to be far too incompatible with the act of creating and the desire to invent.

Athens

If the crisis of 2010 pushed many young Greeks to leave their native country to find job opportunities that match their qualifications the crisis of COVID and the economic recovery of Greece have encouraged many of them to return to their country to take part in its renewal. Strengthened by their experiences abroad they have come to enrich a dynamism initiated by compatriots with their own unique culture which today makes Athens a European capital with a strong identity. Artistically this dynamism was reflected in the holding in 2017 in Athens of Documenta 14. Two years later the Goulandris Foundation opened its new museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. In 2020 the city inaugurates the country’s first National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in the Koukaki district. The DESTE and NEON Foundations and the arrival of international galleries such as Allouche Benias, Rodeo Gallery or Gagosian also contribute to make Athens not only a cultural center turned towards its past, but a real city-destination for contemporary art.

Encouraged by a growing institutional fabric - an influx of artists from European capitals that have become too expensive and always in search of large and affordable spaces - many curators follow the movement to make Athens an emerging and unavoidable place of European Art.

Artistic binomas

To be able on our own scale and through Art to be at the initiative of a new cultural bridge between France and Greece and between Greece and the rest of the world is for us a great source of fulfillment. By being there each month at the origin of a meeting between a Greek artist and a foreign artist, we hope to give birth to a binomial that will enrich the work of each.

The Residency

History

La Chapelle Saint-Antoine is located in the heart of the Kastro - the oldest part of the city of Chora - in an old Venetian house which became a monastery in the early 17th century until the beginning of the 20th century. Agios Antonios - the small chapel that adjoins the monastery and which gave its name to the residency - although in a decrepit state- adorns beautifully this unique architectural complex

Program

From April to November we welcome two artists per month free of charge. The selection is open to all artistic disciplines and nationalities. During their residency, each artist has a room - a private bathroom - as well as a personal workshop. The artists share the kitchen - the main room serving as an exhibition gallery during «open days» - as well as a terrace of nearly two hundred square meters facing the sea and the mountains.

Conditions

Donation

Each resident agrees to donate a completed artwork, representative of its work, whether created during their residency or not. Each of these donations will enrich the private collection of La Chapelle Saint-Antoine, which is exhibited publicly each year.

Transportation

The cost of transportation is the responsibility of the artist or the organization that represents him. On site, the means of transportation are also at the artist’s expense.

Material

The artist may order art materials online from a fine art store located in Athens. The Chapel will take delivery.

Exhibition

At the end of each residency, La Chapelle organizes an «open studio» for the public to see the artists’ work and to interact with them. The artist commits to prepare the scenography of this day.

From April to November
1 month residency
2 artists per month
2 workshops
2 rooms
2 bathrooms

Tools

The Chapel provides artists with an internet connection and an inkjet printer.

Life on site

Food expenses are paid by the artist.

Partners

If partners are unable to accompany the artist during the one-month residency, they are nevertheless allowed to join them for few days.

interior of La Chapelle - works by Alizée Gazeau.jpg

Application

The application file must contain the following documents:

A portfolio
A resume
A short presentation (2 pages maximum) of the project you wish to work on during the residency.
The month(s) of availability.

The application file elements must be sent to the address below in a single PDF file, either in English or French, with "Application" in the subject line.

contact@lachapellesaintantoine.com

The second page of the application file must indicate the artist’s nationality, age, and preferred application months in order of preference (listed in the following format: 04/05/06/07/08/09/10/11).

If artist duo applications are allowed, we would like to inform you that they are rarely selected for the final shortlist. Unless the approach is truly unique or justified by the nature or location of the residency, we tend to favor hosting two different projects within the same residency month.

Schedule

The application period runs throughout the year preceding the upcoming session.

For the 2026 season - The open call period runs from November 1 to December 15, 2025.

La Chapelle Saint-Antoine will inform the selected artists by email by the end of the month of January.

We are aware of the time involved in putting together an application and apologise in advance for not being able to respond to all requests.