Joya: AiR / Laurie Kemp / NED

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Laurie Kemp / NED

‘Having started writing my novel at Joya: AiR three years ago, I always said I would be back to finish it. That's what I did these past weeks.

Some things remained unchanged: the beautiful connections forged with fellow artists, Donna and Simon's anchoring presence, and the mesmerising land around Joya. As last time, many poems came out—near certain pine trees or old river beds.

What I didn't expect was what this residency would ask of me. Joya asks for presence, and it doesn't let you look away. It was only after I'd sat with myself and faced what I'd been avoiding that a new thread unfolded—one that ended up changing my novel for the better. That's what I'm taking with me: the writing wasn't waiting for more time. It was waiting for me to be ready’.

Laurie Kemp

Laurie is an Amsterdam-based writer, entrepreneur and therapist. She recently completed Sophia's Tears, a collection of poems about reclaiming one's voice and body, and is currently finishing her debut novel.

A coming-of-age story set across the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Colombia, the novel follows fifteen-year-old Gaia as she struggles to come to terms with her mother's disappearance—her clothes found where the desert meets the sea. Like much of her art, the novel explores themes of longing, womanhood, the quest for self-determination—and the myriad ways loss shapes our lives and our ability to love, sometimes across generations.

Laurie was born in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in 1991. After years of globetrotting, she happily calls Amsterdam home.