Intro

Lakescape is a creative platform exploring the relationships between water, design and people. Lakescape connects artisans and designers from the European Great Lakes of Vänern, Ohrid Lake and Balaton to investigate and highlight how humans and water can coexist in sustainable ways.

Background

A Creative Europe cooperation project that brings together artisans, designers, and lakeside communities across Europe to explore how humans and water can coexist in a more sustainable and imaginative way. At its heart is a simple but powerful question: What can the lakes teach us about interconnection, regeneration, and repair?

Through residencies, knowledge exchange, and public events, LAKESCAPE investigates how craftsmanship and design can reflect, reshape, and support more harmonious relationships with aquatic ecosystems. By anchoring the project on the shores of Europe’s great lakes—Vänern (Sweden), Ohrid Lake (North Macedonia), and Balaton (Hungary)—we recognize the lakes not as backdrops, but as living ecosystems and cultural landscapes that shape the form and meaning of our work.

The Open Call

We invite designers and artisans working in a variety of disciplines and materials (traditional craftsmanship but also innovative sustainable industrial design) —to submit Design proposals that are envisioned with a friendly and fair connection between human and lake ecosystems.

With this call, we are opening an opportunity to experiment, research, and prototype sustainable designs that enhance possibilities for the creative community and raise awareness of sustainability in lakeside environments.

Through LAKESCAPE, selected designers will:

● Develop their design line, connected/ related/ inspired or using of lake-life renewable resources,
● Be placed on a short residency in one of the 3 lake towns: Lidköping, Struga and Barnag , designed to exchange peer to peer knowledge with creative communities as well as to extend their knowledge about lake ecosystem characteristics of the 3 great lakes.
● Attend Lakescape floating market on the waters of Vänern, the largest lake in the EU — to present and sell your market-ready work in Lidköping, Sweden, on August 15–16, 2025.
● Be able to sell their work on Lakescape e-shop
● Be represented on the project catalogue disseminated to potential future customers and creative and cultural audience across Europe

we offer

● Approx. 2500 EUR (in total with tax expenses)
● Approx. 750 EUR for production and material costs
● Travel, accommodation, and subsidies covered by the project
● Access to local knowledge, workshops and acquaintance with locals
● Connection with an international network of craftspeople and cultural managers
● Participation in the floating-market showcase in Lidköping
● Dissemination and promotion of artisans work through project social channels, videos and events.

SHORT RESIDENCY PLACEMENT

Artisans will be matched to a residency location based on the nature of their craft, local resources, and curatorial direction. For example, clay-based practices may be invited to Barnag, while jewelry artists may find resonance with the cultural narratives of Ohrid Lake. This thematic matchmaking will nurture deep, place-responsive exploration and open paths for intercultural exchange, material experimentation, and community engagement.

Each residency will provide participants with the opportunity to pause, reflect, and develop work rooted in sustainability and locality in dialogue with fellow participants, host communities and lake environment.

LAKESCAPE - The Floating Market

The project will culminate in a public event: the LAKESCAPE Floating Market, taking place on August 15–16, 2025 in Lidköping, Sweden.

Inspired by traditional water-based trading spaces, the LAKESCAPE floating market will function as a mobile exhibition, open-air marketplace, and artistic gathering. Residency participants will present both market-ready and work-in-progress pieces, share tools, stories, and skills, and engage the public in conversation. By communicating the background of their work and its connection to lakeshore life, the selected designers will also act as informal ambassadors of sustainable, place-based design.

The event will activate the shoreline and waterways of Lake Vänern as a platform for imagining new ways of living, making, and connecting across cultures and geographies.

Who Can Apply

We welcome applications from designers, artisans and craftspeople who:
●Are legally residing in a country participating in the Creative Europe Programme, including:

• EU Member States
• Non-EU associated countries: Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Tunisia.

→ Full list here
● Work in manual, material-based disciplines, traditional or contemporary
● Are interested in ecology, sustainability, lakeshore cultures, and place-specific narratives
● Are open to collaborative processes and community engagement
● Are committed to finishing ready made product line to be represented in the frame of the project on the floating market and online
● Are available for a 5-7 day residency in June or July 2025, and for traveling to the Floating Market in August.

Selection Criteria

Participants will be selected based on the following criteria:
● Artistic quality and originality of past work
● Alignment with LAKESCAPE’s themes: sustainability, circular practices, local heritage
● Clarity and feasibility of the proposed idea or research focus
● Motivation to engage with new cultural contexts and non-urban environments
● Willingness to share processes and work-in-progress with others

Selected designers will sign authorship agreements that will be implemented during the duration of the project -until April 2026.
The selection is subject to geographical restrictions due to funding agreements, and the final cohort will reflect a distribution of artisans/designers based in the following regions:

Vänern (Sweden) - 3 designers
Ohrid (North Macedonia) - 3 designers
Balaton (Hungary) - 3 designers
Other Lakes in Creative Europe countries - 3 designers

Under the agreement selected artists will provide professional photography of their market ready designs for the catalogue and e-store, collaborating in filming personalised video shorts, and will agree to be represented through our communication and dissemination canals.

How to Apply

Fill in application form and please submit upload the following:
● A motivation letter (max. 1 page) explaining your interest in LAKESCAPE
● A portfolio of 3–5 works (with brief captions)
● A concept or idea you would like to explore during the residency (max. 1 page text explication and one page sketch/ collage/ storyboard representing vision of the design line
● One page explaining resources and development costs (budget frame) and timeline frame of development process.
● A CV or short bio

Timeline

● Open call launches: April 14, 2025
● Deadline to apply: May 12, 2025
● Selected participants notified: May 19, 2025
● Residencies: June–July 2025
● Floating Market final event: August 15–16, 2025, Lidköping, Sweden
● E-store opening - September 2025
● Catalogue launch - October - November 2025
Video shorts launch - December 2025