NEARVANA // ArQ Winter Residency
ARQ presents NEARVANA: L'INVERNO (The Winter Edition)
Nearvana is ArQ’s recurring two-day residency for 10–12 people from radically different disciplines. Every three months, a completely new cross-domain cohort comes together in a different part of India.
It is not a conference. It is not a retreat. It is a temporary community: a small group of people living, eating, exploring, questioning, and thinking together for 48 hours.
🎻 The Rhythm: Four Seasons, Four Places
A year has four seasons, and Nearvana follows the same rhythm, scored to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Each season becomes a new chapter, in a new place, with 10–12 new people.
The place matters. The landscape, food, traditions, crafts, and local culture are part of the residency itself. The setting is not a backdrop; it changes what we talk about and how we see.
This is L'INVERNO (Winter). For the Winter edition, we descend upon the coast and backwaters of Kerala. The programme will include Kalaripayattu (martial arts), fishing, beach volleyball, coastal walks, deep debates, and cultural experiences inspired by primal traditions such as Theyyam.
🧠 The Philosophy
Nearvana is rooted in a simple belief: technology can connect people across distance, but some forms of trust, understanding, and friendship still require physical presence.
Its intellectual roots sit around a few core ideas: • Privacy as a condition for an open society. • The sovereignty and agency of the individual in a technological world. • The possibility of communities that coordinate online, yet create meaningful physical space together.
Before there is a network, a city, or an institution, there are a few people sitting around a table.
🧬 The Cohort: Useful Difference
A room of people from the same field can become very deep. A room of people from different fields can become unexpectedly generative.
A Nearvana cohort may include builders, researchers, designers, artists, founders, scientists, writers, filmmakers, cryptographers, or cultural practitioners working seriously on something they care about. The goal is not uniformity. It is useful difference: different disciplines, different ways of thinking, and enough shared curiosity to learn from one another.
🤖 The Conversation: AI & The Human Scale
AI is not the only subject of Nearvana, but it is a force changing almost everything around us. We want to talk about both sides: what AI makes possible, and what it may make more fragile.
How does it change work, creativity, knowledge, privacy, identity, and human agency? What should we automate, and what should remain deeply human? The aim is not to arrive with one answer. It is to put different minds in the same room and make better questions possible.
🏗️ What are we building?
The two days are temporary. The relationships do not have to be.
Each season creates a new set of connections. Over time, those connections become a wider network of people who know one another, challenge one another, and carry ideas across disciplines. The real output of Nearvana is not the schedule. It is what continues after the residency ends: a collaboration, a new idea, a disagreement that changes someone's thinking, or a shared memory.
Nearvana is temporary by design. The memory, relationships, and ideas are meant to remain.
📋 Logistics & Application
Dates: Late November (Exact dates shared upon acceptance) • Location: Coastal Kerala (Exact venue shared upon acceptance) • Cohort Size: Strictly 10–12 participants. • Cost: ArQ covers all accommodation and food. Participants only need to cover their travel to the venue.
How to Apply: Because the cohort size is intentionally small and relies on "useful difference," attendance is by application only. Please fill out the registration form below. We review applications on a rolling basis and will reach out to accepted participants within 48 hours.