Joya: AiR / Michalina W Klasik / Paweł Szeibel / Joanna Zdzienicka

Joya: AiR / Michalina W. Klassik

I returned to Joya: arte +ecología after 5 years. When I was here the first time, I was starting to work on “The Secret Activism” project, which I am still developing. Returning to the place where the first works from this project were created, allowed me to observe the evolution of my own attitude. – At the beginning, I struggled with the subject of coping with the difficult knowledge of man's destructive activities towards nature, information about climate change and the associated 6th mass extinction of species. I was accompanied by a sense of shame and powerlessness. Over time, however, my attitude evolved into one of hope and a desire to act. Works started to appear that include reflections on the possibility of constructing new narratives, adopting a non-anthropocentric worldview. This need to create new, good stories about the world increasingly dominated what I was doing. I have also started to pay more attention to collaborative activities – in the arts, intra - and inter - university,  within the framework of “’academic kinship” – understood as ”'an intellectual and ethical relationship with a group sharing a common vision of the world, especially the principles of knowledge construction and academic relationships” (Resilience Academic Team RAT, 2022). I am therefore grateful that I was able to come here as part of a symposium with two other artists with whom we work at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, and to use this time to wander together (which is an important part of each of us artistic practice), to talk and to be attentive to the landscape.

My collaborative thinking also includes interspecies collaboration, understood as an orientation towards the encounter and coexistence of human and non-human beings in the spirit of deep ecology. The various forms of this encounter become the subject for a new series of works.These include a work entitled “equal”, which I started during my stay and which I intend to continue working on.

I returned to Joya again after 5 years, but I never really left completely. This place and its good energy are still with me. Coming back here, all the meetings and conversations, the strength and faith with which Donna and Simon Beckmann run their project, remind me again that ‘I believe in Earth, in compassion and in cooperation — also above species and that I believe (despite all) in humankind.’*

*An excerpt from the “The Secret Activism Manifesto”', full text available on my website:

Michalina W Klasik

Joya: AiR / Paweł Szeibel

‘This is my second encounter with the landscape of the Almería province, a place that captivates with its infinity.

For me, examining and immersing myself in this place is invaluable. The unique experience encompasses only me, my possibilities, and the landscape. I draw inspiration from cognitive experiences and the totality of raw nature. The landscape around the Joya residence: arte + ecología provides an opportunity to study this place, from the ammonites to the urban structures of the nearest towns.

Participation in it inspired me to work with an object I encountered by chance: a braided "pleita" band used for shaping local cheese. It is an artifact woven by local craftsmen from "esparto" grass, typical of this place. It comes from nature and returns to it. Consistent with my previous artistic practices, I explore the possibilities of materials derived from plants, particularly those used in the practice of creating basic items that have remained unchanged for decades. Processing this material and bestowing upon it new forms grants me the opportunity to work on my next project.

I am also extremely pleased to have had the opportunity to participate in the Field Research - Transdisciplinary Approaches to Decolonizing Nature symposium, where I could present my previous research project.

Paweł Szeibel

Joya: AiR / Joanna Zdzienicka - Obałek

Closer {work with collection chiaro + scuro}

From the very beginning, I understood "Closer" as a noun, a device equipped with not only technical, but also mental tools. I perceive the activity associated with the project by this name as time spent under a certain special filter, amplifying the atmosphere of focus, close observation, or perhaps even affection towards the very fabric of an object.

The moonlit landscape on our journey appeared suddenly, although I don't remember the exact moment of this visual leap. It probably happened shortly after we got into a taxi in Velez Rubio. It seemed to me that the car windows had turned into screens filled with a white-gray texture, interwoven with a network of protruding roots. The landscape was becoming increasingly simpler. Eyes tired from constant scanning, after a long journey, finally found relief.

Time spent in this completely new landscape for me – because that's how I perceive it (especially compared to the post-industrial region of Poland where I live and the very center of the city in which I reside) – made me rekindle my interest in the concept of light, but in a completely different context than before. One thread of this context is the sensory level, which I don't always let dominate in my artistic pursuits – it has to be very intense to have the final say. I now rely on a strong sense of the presence of such energy, thinking about the energy accumulated in every element that makes up my surrounding environment, about a kind of accumulated pure warmth that I felt at every step of all my walks and hikes around the Joya center from the first to the last step. An internal warmth... despite the absence of very high temperatures. Maybe, thanks to this internal sense of warmth, I felt that even though my artistic practices are based on collecting, this time I don't want, maybe I shouldn't even take anything with me...? I was afraid I would disturb some balance that had been defining itself in this place over the years. I felt that all I needed was to look as broadly as possible at the entire composition surrounding me, and then put the objects I studied back in their place. Another aspect, long present in my practice, is the constant need to peer inside objects, to illuminate them, not just metaphorically but literally - using scanners, tomographs, photographing them from every possible angle, examining them under a magnifying glass. The aforementioned Closer (as a tool) activated strongly during the residency, for which I am immensely grateful. I still feel the echo of that warmth. On its wave, a new series is being created, where the shape of a shadow will be responsible for the narrative... or perhaps, the edge of light?

Joanna Zdzienicka - Obałek

Three artists / adjuncts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland, in residence as part of the symposium ‘Transdiciplinary Approached to Decolonising Nature’.