Villa Swagatam - Indo-French cultural residency program

Residency brief

The StoneX Global Production Residency at Kishangarh is an invitation to work at the intersection of material intelligence and artistic vision. Set within the StoneX Global Guild, a 20-acre creative campus in the marble capital of India, the residency offers artists a rare confluence: the cultural depth of one of the world’s great stone-working traditions, and a production infrastructure that is among the most advanced on the subcontinent.

Kishangarh has shaped stone for centuries. Its quarries, its craftspeople, and its accumulated knowledge of material are woven into the identity of the place. The residency is designed to position artists within this continuum, not as visitors, but as participants in an ongoing dialogue between hand, tool, and stone.

Artists come here to make work - to test ideas at scale, to collaborate with skilled artisans, and to push the formal and conceptual boundaries of their practice in a setting that is genuinely built for it.

The residency’s thematic focus is the material world of stone and marble - approached across the full range of artistic and craft traditions. We welcome proposals that engage with the material’s physical, cultural, and conceptual possibilities: from monumental sculpture and precision carving to experimental surface treatment, collaborative craft production, and work that places stone in dialogue with other materials and media.

Artists who have worked with stone before, or whose practice has a clear relationship to materiality and production, are especially encouraged to apply. We are interested in work that is ambitious, site-aware, and genuinely invested in the process of making.

Our Space

The residency occupies a dedicated 1.5-acre precinct within the StoneX Global Guild, integrating studio production spaces, the Bottega — a curated workshop environment — and the forthcoming Guild Museum, which will open to the public in the coming year and will function as the cultural and curatorial anchor of the campus.

The production facilities are designed to support work at every scale. Artists have access to advanced CNC-based sculpture manufacturing and precision fabrication, high-capacity stone-cutting, grinding, and finishing equipment, on-demand access to specialist tools and technologies tailored to individual project requirements and a responsive technical team with deep expertise in stone and marble production

The facility is designed to evolve with each artist’s needs. Where specialist equipment is required beyond the standing inventory, arrangements are made to bring it in — ensuring that no project is constrained by infrastructure.

The Guild is also an active cultural institution. Residents participate in a programme of exclusive soirees, artist talks, open studios, and public engagement events — creating opportunities for visibility, dialogue, and exchange within both the Indian and international art communities. Past events have brought together acclaimed artists, curators, collectors, and cultural leaders in an intimate and generative setting.

Sophia Taillet

Artist & Designer

At StoneX, I wish to approach stone as a field of knowledge shaped by tools, craftsmen, rhythms and transmission. The residency offers a context to explore how material, place and gesture can generate form together. Through this encounter, I aim to expand my sculptural vocabulary and develop works where matter becomes a way to think through movement, memory and context.

Sophia Taillet is a French artist-designer based in Paris. A graduate of ENSAD Paris and trained at SVA New York, she develops a practice at the intersection of art, design and craft, exploring material, gesture and movement. Through objects and installations, she weaves together design, craftsmanship and choreography.

Her work has been presented at Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Ricard and Musée de la Chasse, and her lighting piece Vénus joined the Mobilier national collection. A laureate of the Mondes Nouveaux programme, Sophia Taillet develops a transdisciplinary practice where material, sound and bodily dimensions meet. Her installation Spinning Around, unveiled at the Musée de la Chasse in 2025, extends this research into movement, perception and spatial experience. In 2026, she was a Villa Albertine resident in New York, where she studied the city and its flows as a field of reflection. Through experimental processes and close dialogue with makers, her work gives form to the tensions between material, gesture and movement.

Vincent Voillat

Sculptor & Artist

What I hope to find in Kishangarh is not confirmation but displacement - a territory where stone carries a different weight, a different memory, a different relationship to time. I want to work alongside craftspeople whose knowledge lives in their hands before it lives in their minds, and to allow that encounter to alter my practice in ways I cannot yet anticipate. I want to leave with questions I could not have formulated before arriving.

Vincent Voillat is a French sculptor and artist whose practice centres on the collection and direct carving of stone fragments gathered from traversed landscapes. Working with reclaimed marble, limestone and alabaster, he builds stratified assemblages and large-scale graphite drawings that carry the memory of their geological and social origins. He has held residencies in Cairo (2014, 2025), Lisbon (2024) and Paris, and his work has been presented internationally, including at the Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, and Musée Réattu. He is a tenured professor of sculpture at ESAD TALM-Tours since 2015, represented by Galerie Éric Mouchet, Paris.

Residency conditions

The resident should be willing to give up to 20% of his/her residency time to participate in various public engagement events such as workshops, artist talks, open studios, etc. organized by StoneX or the French Institute in India.
The resident will be provided with studio facilities, including a studio and dedicated production space within the StoneX Global Guild, access to the full production and fabrication infrastructure of the Guild and technical support and collaboration with in-house artisans and production specialists
The resident will be provided with a fully furnished studio apartment with equipped kitchen and private bathroom.
The resident will be provided with three meals a day, as well as daily transportation between accommodation and the Guild campus in Kishangarh
In addition, the resident will receive a fixed stipend of INR. 30 000 per month to cover his/her living expenses.
The resident will receive a residency grant of INR. 50 000 per month.
The resident’s travel costs to and from his/her home address will be covered by the French Institute in India.
The resident will be provided access to a dedicated company vehicle available on weekends for travel to Jaipur, Ajmer, and the surrounding region

Eligibility criteria

Proficiency in English is required for the applicant
Have prior experience working with stone, marble or equivalent hard materials.
Demonstrate a clear artistic proposal that can be developed and produced within the residency setting.