What does an art-science residency actually produce, beyond the artworks and public presentations? The Otherwise Residency 2026 publication takes this question as a starting point, documenting the methodologies, working processes, and negotiations that shaped the second edition of Marginal's research residency.

Part resource tool, part behind-the-scenes account, the publication offers a candid look at more than six months of research developed across different disciplines and institutional contexts. It brings together an editorial foreword and an analysis of the residency diaries by Andrei Tudose, a methodological preview and curatorial text by Sabina Suru, and a qualitative post-residency analysis by researcher Alexandra Sofonea.

The publication aims to open up the processes - how questions emerge, how methodologies are negotiated, and what becomes possible when different forms of knowledge encounter one another. It makes visible a dimension of artistic research that often remains outside public presentations and finished works. As such, the publication extends this work beyond the residency itself, offering artists, researchers, and other practitioners a resource for thinking about transdisciplinary methodologies and the conditions needed to produce knowledge across disciplinary boundaries.

Access the full publication here: https://marginal.ro/en/archive/46/

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Otherwise Residency is Marginal's platform for artistic research at the intersection of art, science and public policy. Its 2026 edition connected artists with specialists in scientific research, pollution monitoring and environmental policy through three explorations of how we relate to otherness and the non-human across different perceptual strata.

The residency was developed in collaboration with the Institute of Biology Bucharest of the Romanian Academy and 2Celsius, bringing artistic inquiry into direct contact with biological research and environmental policy expertise.

Research partners: Institute of Biology Bucharest of the Romanian Academy, 2Celsius
Cultural partners: Atelier 35, Zile și Nopți, French Institute in Romania in Bucharest, Austrian Cultural Forum
Acknowledgments: Clean Air Task Force, Radio Guerrilla

Otherwise Residency 2026 is co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN), and implemented with the financial support of the French Embassy in Romania and the French Institute in Romania. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or the manner in which the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.

How do you write a book after 3.17 years of doing art-science projects when you were supposed to be doing only that? 3.17 Marginal Years - Methods, Frictions and Other Survival Strategies from the Balkans started as a collection of experiences, questions, and working methods accumulated through Marginal's first years of activity. It eventually became a publication about what happens when artistic practice, scientific research, and cultural infrastructure meet in a context where none of them has all the resources it needs.

More than offering another introduction to art-science or an idealised account of interdisciplinary collaboration, the book looks at the practical conditions behind it. From incomplete infrastructures and fragmented funding through institutional rigidity, until finally reaching improvised methodologies and the negotiations that rarely make it into project report or exhibition documentation.

Structured around three chapters - Practicing Obsolescence, Trash Scientific Certainty! and Disobedience as Infrastructure - the publication approaches these topics from different perspectives. It explores what becomes obsolete and why, challenges the assumption that collaboration between art, science and ecology is automatically productive, and looks at how practitioners build the contexts, tools and working methods when they do not already exist.

Rooted in experiences from Romania and the wider Balkans, 3.17 Marginal Years brings together different voices, practices, and perspectives to question how knowledge is produced, circulated and supported across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. It is both a reflection on Marginal's own trajectory and an invitation to recognise shared challenges and possible strategies beyond the experience of a single organisation or country.

Edited by Sabina Suru, with contributions by (in order of appearance): Sorin Badea, Tom Chatfield, Alexandra Sofonea, Sabina Suru, Andrei Tudose, Vlad Toma, Alexandra Costea, Daniela Brill Estrada, Claudia Schnugg, Yvonne Volkart, Annick Bureaud, Špela Petrič, Uroš Veber, Venelin Shurelov, Kasia Molga, and Tanja Brandmayr.

Partners: Editura9, Librairie Kyralina, Projekt Atol, Stadtwerkstatt, DA Lab Foundation, CNDB, UNArte, French Institute in Romania, Austrian Cultural Forum, Revista Arta, V2_ Lab for Unstable Media.

3.17 Marginal Years is an editorial project by Marginal, co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN). The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or the manner in which the results of the project may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.

• Immersion & Field Work: Shadowing artists and researchers during site visits to block gardens and laboratories.
• Development: Creating engaging content (video, audio, or text) that reflects the evolution of the artistic prototypes.
• Delivery: Final materials are expected by August 15, 2026*, to be showcased alongside the project’s public interventions.

• Gonzo & Process Journalism: Unfiltered field diaries or first-person essays that document the lived experience of the collaboration. We are interested in the “behind the scenes” of the research—from the raw interactions, capturing how dark diversity or waste theories are debated and felt.
• Ecomediality & Social Storytelling: Native video content (Reels/Video-journals) that explores the relationship between city inhabitants and their gardens. You can document the scientists’ field work or the artists’ experiments, transforming technical data into high-impact micro-documentaries about our more-than-human neighbors.
• Visual Narratives & Photo-reporting: Investigative photography or visual essays that capture the hybrid aesthetics of the project. Focus on making the invisible visible—from the fragility of endemic species to the way technology mediates our perception of the urban landscape.
• Audio Diaries & Sensory Archives: Podcasts or “raw” interviews taken on-site, in the gardens or during the development of sound installations. We seek to capture the live dialogue between researchers and artists as they navigate ecological complexity and the challenges of landscape amnesia.

• A short bio/CV highlighting your previous experience.
• A brief proposal describing your chosen format and how you envision documenting the project – You can propose a project that follows a single artist’s journey, a specific research duo (artist-scientist), or creates a broader narrative across multiple participants.
• A 1-minute video introduction – giving you the chance to put a face to the proposal and tell us what makes your perspective engaging and why you want to join this project.

• Financial support: A fee of 3.000 LEI (before taxes);
• Full access: Direct contact with the artists, researchers, and scientific infrastructure (Institute of Biology, field sites;
• Mentorship: Support from the Marginal team

• “2020 Global Methane Budget shows methane emissions heading in the wrong direction with fossil fuel and agriculture sources leading the way”, Climate Clean Air Coalition;
Desroches-Touchain, Ariane.
• Desroches-Touchain, Ariane. “Making Methane Visible: From Local Leaks to EU Regulation”, Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (Autumn 2025), no. 11. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. doi:10.5282/rcc/10033;
Daniel Zimmerle, Timothy Vaughn, Clay Bell, Kristine Bennett, Parik Deshmukh, and Eben Thoma,
• Daniel Zimmerle, Timothy Vaughn, Clay Bell, Kristine Bennett, Parik Deshmukh, and Eben Thoma, “Detection Limits of Optical Gas Imaging for Natural Gas Leak Detection in Realistic Controlled Conditions”, Environmental Science & Technology 2020 54 (18), 11506-11514, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c01285;
Kuhlmann, G., Stavropoulou, F., Schwietzke, S., Zavala-Araiza, D., Thorpe, A., Hueni, A., Emmenegger, L., Calcan, A., Röckmann, T., and Brunner, D.: “Evidence of successful methane mitigation in one of Europe’s most important oil production region”, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5371–5385, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5371-2025, 2025.

• immersion (~1-2 weeks) / in situ -> the artists shadow the researchers in their daily work to understand and discuss research hypotheses, scientific and societal implications, measurements and work processes etc.
• conceptualization (~1-2 months) / online -> artist returns home and crystallizes an artistic research hypothesis, in contact with the researcher(s).
• experiment (~1-2 weeks) / in situ -> artist returns to Romania/Bucharest to test the hypothesis with the researchers, spend time together in the field and clarify the creative direction, and collaborate in planning the artistic prototype.
• open-ended production (artist studio) -> once the concept has been clarified, a prototype of an installation, a proof of concept (etc.) happens, in preparation for the exhibition. Being a rather short program, we don’t expect an elaborate work, but rather a prototype or a lens into the process, research and collab methodologies.

• Financial support: stipend – 3000 eur; production budget – TBD; we will separately cover travel (within Europe), accommodation and per diem.
• Access to OGI (Optical Gas Imaging) footage and equipment, and scientific datasets from CATF/2Celsius.
• Curatorial and technical mentorship from the Marginal team.
• Logistical support for field research within Romania.

• 6 weekly online collective meetups;
• 1 week (September 2026) of sharing practices and co-creation in Bucharest, Romania, ending with a public showcase event;
• Everyone will be invited to give a mini-workshop to share knowledge with the other participants, write a short reflection paper on the topic, and participate in a podcast/ radio show while in Romania.

• Stipend: 1500 Eur (before taxes) – pending financing of the project by Romanian grants (see timeline).
• Production budget – based on production plans discussed individually.
• Travel, accommodation, and per diem for the week in Romania.

• March 9 – open call deadline
• March 20 – confirmation of pre-selected artists
• Mid June – confirmation of project funding
• End July – kick-off meeting (online)
• August – Online sessions (3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, and 31st)
• September 21-25 – in-person co-creation and practice sharing in Bucharest, Romania
• September 26 – public showcasing event in Bucharest