Villa Formose
"Villa Formose brings together French and Taiwanese artists within a dedicated platform for research, creation and innovation."
Creation, research, exploration & innovation, in Taiwan and France.
Created in 2023 by the French Office in Taipei, Villa Formose is part of a context of rapid development of artistic residency programmes supported by the French cultural network abroad. These residencies have become privileged spaces for the circulation of ideas, fostering artistic and intellectual exchanges at an international scale. Beyond cultural dissemination, they offer artists and researchers conditions conducive to exploration, experimentation and the emergence of new forms of creation. Designed as a support programme dedicated to research and creation, Villa Formose thus encourages encounters between French and Taiwanese artistic scenes, while supporting innovative artistic approaches connected to Taiwan’s cultural, social and intellectual realities.
Villa Formose’s distinctive feature lies in its operation through open calls for projects, which invite artists and researchers to develop projects directly engaged with Taiwanese themes, contexts or questions. Launched in 2023, the first programme, Villa Formose Immersive, sits at the intersection of cultural and creative industries and technological innovation. It aims to foster cooperation between French and Taiwanese ecosystems around virtual reality and augmented reality creation. Designed as a bilateral programme, it offers writing and prototyping residencies co-constructed with cultural institutions in France and Taiwan, allowing artists to develop projects that are both innovative and rooted in the dynamics of cooperation between the two industries.
From 2024 onwards, Villa Formose has expanded its scope by developing new components. The Villa Formose New Writings programme encourages research and exploration residencies open to a wide diversity of profiles: artists, authors, curators, researchers, anthropologists or philosophers, invited to pursue in Taiwan work of reflection or creation linked to the territory, its institutions, its collections or its artists. In the literary field, Villa Formose Book supports the translation of French authors into Chinese, in close partnership with the Taipei International Book Exhibition, while also welcoming French authors engaged in writing or research projects connected to Franco-Taiwanese perspectives.
Alongside these open calls, Villa Formose also develops thematic residencies designed in dialogue with local cultural dynamics. A Villa Formose Innovative Living Arts programme thus accompanies artists and institutions exploring new scenic writing in an era of immersive technologies and augmented environments, while questioning the economic models and conditions for development of these emerging forms.
Finally, the Villa Formose Nuit Blanche programme extends the cultural cooperation undertaken with the City of Taipei around the Nuit Blanche Taipei, a major artistic event organised since 2016. Since 2025, a one-month residency has enabled a French artist to develop a project in Taiwan presented at the event. From 2026 onwards, this programme enters a new phase by becoming bilateral: a Taiwanese artist will in turn be welcomed in France to present their work as part of Nuit Blanche Paris, thus strengthening artist circulation and dialogue between French and Taiwanese contemporary art scenes.
Through all these programmes, Villa Formose asserts its ambition: to make Taiwan a privileged space for research, creation and cooperation for contemporary artists and thinkers, and to contribute to the emergence of projects that engage with the major artistic, technological and societal challenges of our time.
A Hub in an International Network of Residencies
Villa Formose is also part of the network of Villa programmes supported by the Institut français, which brings together several artistic residency schemes developed by the French cultural network abroad. As such, it constitutes a pilot programme contributing to reflection on new forms of international artist support. Beyond the residency period itself, particular attention is paid to the circulation of alumni artists and the implementation of post-residency projects, developed on a case-by-case basis according to artistic dynamics and collaborations initiated in Taiwan. Each artist thus benefits from specific support designed to extend the reach of their project, foster international collaborations and situate their work within a broader network of cultural partners.
Villa Formose also positions itself as a tool of cultural diplomacy serving dialogue between France and Taiwan. By fostering encounters between artists, researchers, institutions and audiences, it contributes to the emergence of projects that engage with contemporary challenges in creation and society. Villa Formose thus works to strengthen cultural ties between the two territories and affirm shared values founded on openness, freedom of creation and the sharing of knowledge.
Villa Formose is supported by the Institut français.
