photo Simon Beckmann
Joya: AiR / Dave Griffiths / UK
“Spring in the Sierra María-Los Vélez is a perfect season to centre artistic fieldwork on the reawakening flora of the semi-desert Mediterranean steppe. I returned to Joya for a month to develop a new body of work exploring phytography as a place-responsive archival process. Combining solar UV energy, large-format microfilm, and plant-based photochemistry, I produce 'stress responses' that capture the resilience of plants across Joya's terraces, mountainside, and barranca. This process also reflects my changing neurology during a period of personal transition.
My interest lies in the formal clashes between the rational, informatic sensibility of document film and the agency of plants as they transcribe their architecture onto the emulsion. Working with dominant southwestern trees—Aleppo pine, almond, and olive—I formulate developers and toners that activate the phenolic content of understory species and draw out the latent colours of calcareous soil and rock. Low-ISO document film enables a slow, sensory process of making phytograms both inside and outside Joya's darkroom, resulting in fossil-like images that record a plant's momentary life within the deep time of the sierra.
The impeccable hospitality offered by artists Donna and Simon, alongside the supportive atmosphere among fellow residents, makes Joya an ideal space for deep immersion in practice and land”.
Dave Griffiths
