About the internship

Aldea is a centre for contemporary art, design and technology on the Bergen waterfront: a gallery, 17 artist studios, residencies, public courses, and professional wood, metal and digital fabrication workshops. We meet people with the skills they have, build and share experience with them, and what you do here depends on what is happening in the building. There is a lot going on.

Designed around how you meet us. The programme is designed around each applicant. We accept a broad range of applicants: artists, designers, architects, engineers, software developers, makers, curators and producers, writers. You don't need to fit a profile.

Under one roof. Every component of the cultural industry is under one roof here: gallery, studios, residency, workshops, courses, software, and the running of the organisation itself. Aldea is an ongoing experiment. We adopt new tools early and integrate them into our own ecosystem, with real clients and real production, so the value is real rather than an abstracted concept. Our conceptual aspirations are grounded in reality: we pay for our mistakes in real time, and that keeps the theory honest. It is not only about making things: we take big risks to acquire new knowledge, and that lets us move through the new paradigms, theoretically and conceptually, across disciplines. The tools are emerging and the landscape changes fast, so interns become nodes of exploration in the hivemind of our multidisciplinary community.

What is going on

• Gallery — promotion, art installation and art production for the exhibitions.
• Studios — working with the artists, designers and architects in the studios.
• Software — small applications for projects, such as running the motors on a kinetic work.
• Workshops — building or designing for clients: artists, architects, designers, engineers, inventors. Or building the workshops themselves.
• Courses — training, or learning, with the public courses we run.
• Infrastructure — developing the profile of the organisation, its workflows and its strategies, with the director.

The software layer. Much of Aldea is built on a large digital ecosystem: several interlinked software applications, many of them experimental or one of a kind. They exist not only to support the cultural sector but to amplify and change the ways artists and cultural practitioners connect and produce new things. We consider this software layer a creative initiative in itself, one that restructures the fabric of the cultural field; the developers who build it, and the people who use it, are in a position to shift how that field works. Curatron is the clearest example: artists apply to an exhibition and then vote on each other's applications, so the show is selected by the applicants themselves rather than by a curator or a jury. Thousands of artists have used it.

What you walk out with. Broad working knowledge across art production, fabrication, software, curation and cultural management. Co-credit on installations, software and built work you contribute to. A signed reference letter and introductions to our network of artists, galleries and fabrication partners. Off-hours access to the workshops for your own projects. We work with AI tools daily and onboard interns into our AI workflows and tooling.

Practical. Six months or a full year, full time, on site; we strongly prefer a full year. Unpaid by Aldea: the placement is designed for Erasmus+ funding through your university, and we sign the educational agreements that requires. What the grant covers is a question for your Erasmus+ coordinator. We do not provide accommodation, but we help you find it. Working language English; Norwegian welcome, not required. Non-EU/EEA nationals: a residence permit is your own responsibility; we provide documentation confirming the placement.

How to apply. Email cameron.mac@aldea.art, subject "Intern 2027 – your name": CV; portfolio link or PDF (finished work, not just process shots); 200 words at most on what you bring, what you want to learn here, and why Aldea specifically; confirmation that you have access to Erasmus+ (or equivalent) funding through your university, and your available start window. Apply by 15 November 2026 for the first cohort; rolling after that. We read every application. If yours is thoughtful, you'll hear back.

Full page: aldea.art/interns