Joya: AiR / Kelly Hill / GBR
photo Simon Beckmann
I know there is no straight road
No straight road in this world
Only a giant labyrinth
Of intersecting crossroads
Comprendo que no existe
El camino derecho
Solo un gran labertino
De encrucijadas multiples
extract, “Los puentes colgantes / Floating Bridges” from Suites
by Frederico Garcia Lorca
It has taken over three years for me to complete a residency at Joya Air - due to circumstances beyond any control.
Arriving at night, crosscountry from Granada to Vélez Rubio, past the castle at Vélez Blanco - a white dust road meanders into the Sierra Maria-Los Vélez Natural Park - a stark landscape silhouetted against the star filled sky. Perhaps the very effort of arriving is part of the allure, and the warm hospitality that harbours in the expansive land where all are free to walk, think and make.
Through the medium of photography, drawing, walking and installation, my work investigates what it is to be a part of nature, how to establish a reciprocal relationship with it while recording and taking note of detail. I arrived with a box, some pencils, notebooks and a camera. Every morning I would rise early to wander, initially exploring the barranco (dry riverbed) that channels flash flood water from the hillside to the valley, then up through almond and olive terraces to deserted farmsteads.
Simon had told us that there had been very little rain in the area since April and that the land was particularly dry following summer heatwaves across Europe. Andalucía is one of the most vulnerable regions in Europe to climate change and without careful land and water management desertification of this region will intensify.
My instinct was to collect rock, old tins, roots, seeds, snail shells and broken objects discarded in the landscape and bring them back to the studio to draw, photograph and, where cracked or broken - repair. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by applying a lacquer dusted with powdered gold. As a philosophy, it regards breakage as part of the history of an object and the repair remembers the fault rather than make it disappear.
I have returned to the UK with a collection of material that feels like the start of a body of work and an imagination reignited by the experience of being embedded in a new and remarkable place.
Thank you Simon and Donna for creating a regenerative haven in a spectacular part of the world.
Kelly Hill is one of the co-founders of Culture Declares Emergency, a growing community of creative practitioners concerned about the dire state of our living planet. Since launching in April 2019, over 1000 individuals and organisations have ‘declared’ an emergency as part of a movement demanding systemic change to support life on Earth. Kelly works closely with Writers Rebel - a group of novelists, poets, screenwriters and academics who use the power of words to claim a safer, fairer future for all the planet’s inhabitants – human and non-human. Most recently on the development of the Paint the Land projects that link high-profile writers with well-loved and emerging visual artists to create landscape graffiti with a powerful ecological message to address the climate and ecological emergency.