Joya: AiR / Pascal Glissmann / GER
photo Simón Beckmann
Joya: AiR / Pascal Glissmann / GER
“Living in New York brings a constant flow of creative input, but it often comes with the paradox of very limited physical space. Much of my work happens digitally — the laptop screen becoming my primary real estate. For my residency, I was looking for space, physically and mentally.
Already the bus ride through Andalucía began shifting my mindset. The residency’s remote setting, embedded within the landscape, immediately created a slower and more attentive mode of observation. I came to Joya: AiR interested in extending my digital practice into physical space through analog material recording processes. While my initial focus was on experimental photographic methods, I quickly became drawn to the wild clay deposits scattered throughout the surrounding landscape.
Much of my broader research looks at ancient clay discs and embedded writing systems, so I became increasingly interested in the materiality of writing in clay itself — not only as language, but as gesture and process. This led me on daily hikes through seasonal stream beds, searching for small amounts of wild clay. Using casts made from the bottoms of industrial food containers, I began producing clay tablets whose surfaces already carried inscriptions: food safety icons, chemical abbreviations, production codes, and traces left behind by automated manufacturing systems. I became interested in tracing these objects backwards — from mold lines to petrochemical extraction, from plastic containers to geological matter. While industrial molding systems can produce hundreds of thousands of containers per day, my own process moved intentionally slowly: collecting, preparing, molding, drying, and documenting everything by hand.
What I ultimately take away from Joya: AiR is less a finished body of work than a shift in observation itself. Donna and Simon created a rare environment that supports experimentation and conversation without the pressure of constant productivity. The spirit of the residency existed not only in the landscape and studio spaces, but also in the community formed through shared meals (which were incredible), studio visits, presentations, and informal exchanges. To me, JOYA offered the opportunity to recalibrate how to see and record. While I arrived with a plan for my time there, I think the real strength of the residency lies in the freedom — and openness — to pivot toward entirely unexpected materials and modes of exploration”.
Pascal Glissmann
Pascal Glissmann is a designer, media artist, and educator based in New York. He is co-director of the Observational Practices Lab at The New School and full-time faculty in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons School of Design, where he directed the Communication Design (AAS) program from 2019 to 2024. Before joining Parsons in New York, he held full-time positions at the Academy of Media Arts (Cologne), the Academy of Visual Arts (Hong Kong), and the Lebanese American University (Beirut), developing a transcultural perspective on design education. His teaching and research explore visual language and archival methods as inquiries into cross-disciplinary ways of knowing. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH Los Angeles, Kiasma Helsinki, and the New Media Art Festival Japan.
@pascalglissmann
