Concordia MFA candidate Danica Olders sets off for three months on the Swedish island of Gotland

Danica Olders, an MFA student in studio arts (sculpture and ceramics) at Concordia, has been awarded the 2025 Brucebo Fine Art Summer Residency.

The prize supports a three-month working residency beginning in June, hosted at the historic Brucebo studio cottage in the Själsö fishing village, just north of the medieval Hanseatic city of Visby on the Swedish island of Gotland.

The residency includes travel support and exclusive access to the Brucebo studio cottage. As part of the program, Olders will donate a work created during the summer to the Brucebo Museum’s Canadian Collection.

Her artistic practice explores themes of space, object and perception.

‘The isolation of the residency will give me time to slow down’

Can you tell us what this award means to you and how it will impact your artistic practice?

Danica Olders: Receiving the Brucebo award feels like a rare and affirming gift of time, space and trust. It offers a sense of belief in the quiet, slow and speculative aspects of my practice —things that don’t always have immediate outcomes, but that are vital to how I make work. The award allows me to be fully immersed in the process of creating, researching and observing without external pressure, which is a huge impact in itself. I see it as a way to both deepen and stretch my work, in a context that feels wildly generative.

What motivated you to apply for the award? How did the opportunity to go to Själsö align with your artistic goals and current projects?

DO: My work often centres on space — not just as a physical environment, but as something lived, imagined and relational. The opportunity to work in Själsö, on the edge of the Baltic Sea, aligned with my desire to explore how space is felt and navigated, especially in places that are unfamiliar or encourage slower, more attentive rhythms.

Its coastal geography, shifting weather and history of movement and trade offer new ways for me to think about memory, access and orientation. I was especially drawn to the residency’s balance of isolation and embeddedness — the chance to spend time in a place that is both unfamiliar and intimately lived in.

DO: How do you see this residency shaping your future projects? Do you have any specific ideas or themes that you plan to explore during your three-month stay at the Brucebo studio?

As I prepare for my thesis defense in fall 2025, I’m focusing on ideas of space, memory and orientation — especially through the lens of the sphere as both a geometric form and a metaphor for containment, connection and the limits of lived experience. I’m thinking about how people hold onto fragments — objects, stories, emotions — and how these remnants shape a sense of identity or summarize a life. 

The residency offers a unique setting to develop these ideas. The location, a coastal home designed to blur the line between inside and out, resonates with my interest in transitions and thresholds. During my time there, I plan to develop a series of paintings, ceramics and temporary activations that interact with Brucebo’s history and landscape.

How do you plan to expand or deepen this focus during your residency there?

DO: Gotland’s histories and the isolation of the residency will give me time to slow down. By stepping out of my usual environment, I’ll be able to notice different details, patterns and shifts. I plan to use that distance to look at my work — and my habits of making — with fresh eyes. I’ll spend a lot of time exploring, painting and experimenting with local materials that respond directly to the place. I’m interested in how slowness and unfamiliarity can help surface new questions about how space is experienced and remembered. 

What are you hoping to take away from this experience both personally and professionally?

DO: Personally, I’m hoping to reconnect with a more intuitive and embodied way of working. Professionally, I want to come away with a deeper understanding of how site-specificity and slowness can shape my practice. I also see the experience as a chance to document and develop new approaches that can later expand into larger installations or exhibitions, grounded in this particular time and place.

Do you have any goals or projects for when you return from the Brucebo residency?

DO: Yes — I'm preparing for my thesis defense, which continues my research into spatial intimacy and rupture. I imagine the work developed at Brucebo will become a central part of that exhibition, both emotionally and materially. I’m also hoping the time there will bring some clarity and momentum that can carry into the next phase of my practice.

Learn more about Concordia’s Faculty of Fine Arts and its funding and awards.