photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / group residency / Manchester School of Art / Manchester Metropolitan University / ENG

Joya: AiR is once again delighted to host Manchester School of Art / Manchester Metropolitan University after a few years break (thanks to the pandemic). This time led by Dr Dave Griffiths (Senior Lecturer and Section Head, Art Postgraduate) and teaching assistant Anna Clough, as Brigitte Jurack (Reader and Head of Sculpture/Time Based Arts), who has traditionally brought student to us is exhibiting in HOME Manchester. Her exhibition ‘Fieldnotes’ and I quote…

A series of diaristic drawings of rocks with compressed fauna or marine life, and fungi, are shown together with photographs of collaborative happenings with Manchester School of Art students, on land that has been degraded through intensive monoculture and water shortage or excess. Whilst the drawings depict geological time, the photographs document moments of re-imagining, being in the land(scape). Produced in two vastly different European climates, Dovestones in Greater Manchester and one of the most arid, Joya: arte + ecología / AiR in southern Spain, they function as an homage to water, an increasingly scarce natural resource.

The students, as always, are eclectic and super enthusiastic investigating every mountain and valley experimenting with land based installation, moulding clay, weaving dry grass, experimenting with alternative photography techniques, embroidery, stone carving and much more.

It has been great to bring this collective force of nature into the natural habitat of the high sierras of Almería.

We look forward to next year…

And in their absence they have left their sound… Spotify Manchester School of Art at Joya: AiR 22 playlist