Spend a week in the studio. As a Maker for a Week, you are free to experiment, question and take risks without being expected to produce a concrete outcome. You will work in a studio in Amsterdam, focusing on a specific research question. As part of the trajectory, you will share your research with an audience at the end of the week and return at a later stage to take part in Back to Base.

Every creative process begins with a period of experimentation and research: testing and questioning, trying and failing. Through the Maker for a Week trajectory, TENT supports this vulnerable stage of an artist’s practice. The trajectory centres on one specific research question. For one week, a circus artist or company is given a studio in Amsterdam and the space to explore that question. It might concern the relationship between body and object, material or technique, but could also focus on space, audiences, risk or a theoretical question. The form is open; circus is the point of departure. Throughout the week, TENT provides production, artistic and technical support, along with a modest creation budget intended for a small team.

Maker for a Week is open to circus artists whose professional practice is based in the Netherlands. The trajectory is explicitly intended for early-stage research and is not expected to lead to a finished result. A new artistic direction, an initial sketch, an unexpected discovery or the conclusion that an idea does not work can all be valuable outcomes. We do, however, ask the artist to share the findings of their research with an invited audience. The form of this presentation is open. We are looking for artists who are curious, willing to question and prepared to start at the beginning, even if they do not yet know where that might lead. In the selection process, we look primarily at the research question, its artistic urgency and the way it takes circus as its point of departure.

Read more about TENT's vision to get an idea of our working method. From 2025 onwards we. work in collaboration with Theater de Landing in Amstelveen.

2026 Rhea Slootweg & Aylish Bik • Johannes Mach & JB Thevenod • 2024 Jakob Jacobsson • Insurgentes Company • If Circus • Michael Zandl • Berkey • Profondo Rosso • 2023 Saar Rombout & Sianna Bruce • Fenja Barteldres • Samuel Rhyner • Susanna Paavola • Hanna de Vletter Lily&Janick • 2022 AREND DE JONGE • JORGA LOK • MARIA MADEIRA • PETRA STEINDL & FELIX ZECH • HARVEY COBB • JAM SHENANIGANS • 2021 Liza van Brakel • Sinking Sideways • Jessica Hellmuth • Marth & Jan De Kinder • Luuk Brantjes • House of Circus • 2020 Joris de Jong • Eva van Boxtel • Emilie Weisse • Kolja Huneck • Paul van der Waterlaat • Maria & Hendrik