Over the course of the last fifteen years or so, I have had the fortune of being engaged with various artist residency programs as a founder, director, juror, board  member and donor. These residencies have taken on a variety of forms: from retreats to exchanges; sitespecific, studio-based, workshop and community based efforts; formats which focus on production and training; initiatives focused on a group or an individual; regionally specific and international in scope; formal and informal artist-run spaces, as well as official staterun bodies; and sometimes initiatives with a diplomatic scope. In my view, residencies remain essentially about experimentation, research and learning regardless of their mission, purpose or nature. 

http://www.contemporarypractices.net/essays/volumeX/Settingtherecordstraight.pdf