Joya: AiR / Frank Hanswijk / NED
photo Simon Beckmann
Joya: AiR / Frank Hanswijk / NED
I had this plan for doing a residency for a long time, but never pushed through. Joya: AiR is the first! I’ve been doing a lot of photography for the past 30 years, and I felt I needed a new direction with my autonomous work. Working digitally since 2005 had, over the last few years, made me a bit numb and I found myself repeating myself. It felt like the right time to go back into the darkroom and its techniques, to work again with my technical camera, make some caffenol developer, and see how the good old ‘clean’ chemicals work.
My focus and workflow were positively impacted by the surroundings: the quiet and lack of distractions. I didn’t know it could have such an impact on me personally. It made me more mindful of the entire landscape. Seeing bee-eaters flying continuously over the cortijo and its surroundings gives me goosebumps when I think about it again. The presence of other artists also inspired me to do more and was good for reflection. When I had a bad batch of film developed, I was disappointed, but a fellow artist and sculptor just said, “productive failure”. That gave me some kind of boost to work further… with joy.
It has also made me more aware of my carbon footprint. I became more conscious of ecosystems that are sensitive to climate change, and of the water shortage in this area. Over the last few years especially, it has become visible in the landscape. I feel a responsibility as an artist to act on this.
After I gave a presentation to my fellow artists during my stay, there were good remarks about the photographs I had made here, but also about how they related to my former work. It felt good to know I was on the right track. One observation that stayed with me was that my work is often drawn towards the marginalised – whether people or places – and towards things that exist outside what is considered normal or conventional. It made me recognise a thread that has been present in my work for a long time.
Bio
My practice spans three decades and has evolved from documentary reportage and portrait photography towards a sustained inquiry into the relationship between built and natural environments – and increasingly, into what occurs when that boundary dissolves.
My commissioned work includes architectural photography, alongside social documentary projects for activist groups and cultural organisations. My independent series trace the deeper arc of my practice: Belgisch Landschap (since 2005), an ongoing study of Belgium’s unplanned, idiosyncratic beauty; and more recently, BOOM, with its ‘tree portraits’, and Wild at the Margin, a series in which trees, mosses, fungi and insects become primary subjects, portraying nature’s quiet reclamation of human-made space.
It is nature that leaves its mark: reclaiming, persisting, returning with a resilience that is sometimes quiet, sometimes startling, and often unexpectedly beautiful. A lichen colonising a concrete wall, a railway verge becoming an accidental wildlife corridor – these are not signs of abandonment but of negotiation. What emerges carries hope, as a hybrid: neither entirely human nor entirely wild, but carrying the history of both.
