photo Simon Beckmann
About Joya: AiR
Two weeks working in a friendly environment in which contemplation or interaction can
be freely chosen has been an invaluable opportunity. Listening to people talking about
their work, including looking at the night sky with an artist who is working with scientists
involved with new discoveries, has been an important element of the residency”.
Pamela Aldridge . http://pamaldridge.co.uk/
“Two years ago, I was having my first solo exhibition. I was showcasing my handcrafted jewellery collection ‘Fusion – Haka Piri’ at Aukara Gallery in Easter Island. In that trip, I had the opportunity to see Toki, a music and arts school that attempts to protect their heritage and the environment. The architect from this school is Michael Reynolds, the ‘Garbage Warrior’, known for his Earthship constructions and promoting sustainability. I remember sharing lunch from a pot with volunteers from all over the world that where helping to construct this school. Who could possibly imagine that you could have such inspiring discussions about sustainability in the most isolated island of the world?
In that trip, I also had the chance to meet Cristián Arévalo Pakarati, Co-Director of EISP (Easter Island Statue Project). Cristián took me around the Island explaining me each archaeological remain and how their civilisation had collapsed through wasting all natural resources. Thus, there is an abyss between reading a report warning us from possible Climate Change consequences than actually experiencing the desolation of a place that was destroyed by humans. You suddenly realise, that is not a ‘Green Alarmist Fairy Tale’ the fact that we’re probably the only species able of extinguishing everything.
That trip was quite enlightening and changed the way I was reflecting onwards my practice. I started questioning myself how could I as an artist invite people to re-think the way we consume and relate to the environment. How can we find a balance among reassessing our haptic (tactile) sensitivity and incorporating new technologies? How do we face the Anthropocene? Maybe, part of the solution, is as simple as going back to the basics and reconnecting to the earth.
Later on, I moved to London, that must be one of the most creatives cities on the one hand, but with space and weather limitations to work outdoors on the other hand. Therefore, applied for the residency in Joya: AiR, Andalucía. I wrote an email to Simon vaguely explaining my idea, and asked him to collect glass bottles. The first time I went in June with classmates from the MA Arts and Science from Central Saint Martins. I began just with a couple of sketches and the image in my mind, but didn’t even knew how to make cob. Simon lent me his shovel and garden tools and taught how to make cob mixing clay, water and hay. With a bit of a back ache and hard work in collaboration with my sister and Olga Suchanova we managed to finish ‘The Re-Enlightment’ sculpture in 5 days.
When leaving, I realised my sculpture might not resist the winter, hence decided to come back in October with Olga who had left pinhole cameras in the outside and inside to study how would the light play on the sculpture.
In this second trip we were more focused, we needed to find the eco-friendliest solution to make the sculpture water proof. Again, Simon came up with the inspiration and suggested to cover it with beeswax diluted with linseed oil and pure turpentine. After a couple of days melting wax in bain-marie and without smartphone connection, I really had the space to reflect upon how do I want go to the next step on my practice.
The Re-Enlightment, is not only an aesthetical piece, in opposition to conceptual individualistic arts, requires collaboration and the involvement of a community on its construction process. Is a monument that makes a recycling statement and invites to rethink if the rational ideas of the Enlightenment really brought us the wealth we wanted. It attempts to give the new light for our society, even seeming alive as the bottles make a nice eco when the wind blows. It is a piece that speaks about the urge of not forgetting our ability of sensing the world through our hands, and not forgetting that our planet is alive”.
Tere Chad
Tere Chad @ Joya: AiR
Chilean artist and creative inventor based in London. Strongly concerned about sustainability and promoting Latin American art abroad, she is a Co-Founder of the Latinos Creative Society at the University of the Arts London.
Through her mixed media practice, she exposes how touch screen technologies detach us from our tactile instincts and empowers the society of the spectacle. She attempts to invite us to try to find a healthy balance between reassessing haptic sensitivity and approaching new technologies.
She has had 5 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 15 collective shows in 4 different continents, highlighting: Hanga Roa – Easter Island, Santiago – Chile (Decorative Arts Museum, Fundación Cultural de Providencia), London – England (Tate Modern – Tate Exchange, Royal Society, Gordon Museum, Clifford Chance), Leeds – England (Central Library), Barcelona – Spain (Convent dels Àngels – Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona), Bucharest – Romania, Massachusetts – United States, Chengdu – China (Sichuan University Art Museum).
Recently graduated from MA Art and Science at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London; has just commenced the MA Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London, where she pretends to research for sustainable solution in sculptural practices, and how this could positively impact on the public space.
Olga Suchanova is Slovakian visual artist and researcher living in London. Olga’s background is in photography, art and science. Her practice is based on experimenting with different mediums such as traditional printmaking, alternative and analogue photography, digital art, photogrammetry and virtual reality.
Olga’s research base is to explore physics through photography. The aim to do art residencies is to experiment with the photographic image, which is represented by human or inhuman and demonstrates how the invisible can become visible by the usage of the different elements. Olga builds camera obscuras at the place, and leaving the pinhole cameras to be exposed for days, weeks and months, captures the night sky. Doing so, she is questioning what is the time and how our time is projected through our eyes and undercovers the meaning of the reality and illusion.
At Joya: AiR Olga collaborated with other artist Tere Chad and installed 12 pinhole cameras, made from the beer cans on Tere’s sculpture called “The Re-Englightment.”
Olga Suchanova
Olga Suchanova @ Joya: AiR
Olga Suchanova @ Joya: AiR
Olga Suchanova @ Joya: AiR
“As a painter, I’ve been on a constant pursuit for newer languages of expression to embed into my work. I wanted to find a way to dig deeper inside of me and come out with something richer and more emotive.
At Joya: AiR, the solitude truly helped me develop my work, which was mixed with enlightening conversations at the dinner table. The vastness all around Los Gázquez (Joya: AiR) is awe inspiring and made contemplate over the smallness of our presence in front of something that is much bigger and profound than us.
I was interested in exploring the formless nature of thought and how it can metamorphosize itself into representative or nonrepresentative visual forms on paper. With a bunch of old photographs collected from a flea market, I was exploring the idea of a shared history where I wanted to incorporate a new symbolic language to depict an abstracted lyrical narrative between something that has been absolute (the photograph) and what is more conceptual than true (the drawing). Kind of like music.
Walking along the Barrancos, I took inspiration from the natural objects and the manners of their arrangement in space and their forms, as means of symbolic representations, which I later interpreted them in several ink drawings.
I feel extremely lucky to have found myself in a space like Joya: AiR and conceptualized so many ideas that I can work on for my future projects. Simon and Donna have really made this paradise happen with such mesmerising grace.
I love them immensely for being so kind and making me feel at home with magical stories from their adventures in India, the funny Bollywood music from Simon’s playlist and Donna’s absolutely gorgeous food”.
- Rithika Pandey
“Joya: AiR es un lugar en el que el tiempo está presente, las conversaciones trascendentales son habituales y la desconexión es real.
Normalmente viajamos miles de kilómetros buscando nuevas experiencias. Pero a veces no hace falta ir tan lejos. En Joya: AiR he encontrado gente auténtica de todo el mundo, tiempo y energía para experimentar en un proyecto personal y un entorno muy especial.
Gracias a Simon, a Donna y a toda la gente que he encontrado por aquí, por hacer que esta experiencia sea única”.
Beatriz Blanes
“When I first arrived at Cortijada Los Gázquez (Joya: AiR), I took a long deep breath, filled my lungs with the unique scent of the land- a fusion of lavender and rosemary. I inhaled, the almond trees, mountains and let the wind whisper in my ear. Immediately felt the narratives of the previous settlers in my head, their struggles with drought and water scarcity. During my days at the residency, I consciously allowed myself to immerse in the irrational quality of inspiration. I felt the urgency to create a direct and a primitive contact with the rough, arid yet serene landscape of Los Gázquez. I wanted to investigate how it feels to temporarily settle in this raw unfathomable territory.
I wanted to explore oil pastels on paper, something that I never used before in my practice. I was hoping that I could start a new body of work with an unfamiliar material as a response to my experience of being in a new territory. I chose oil pastels for the simplicity and immediacy in its pigmentation to articulate a new gaze toward my present time and space. While working with oil pastels I discovered an alternative aspect to my painting approach; this time I started to represent the landscape through simple shapes and colors. I became interested in the sharp vivid colors of oil pastels, psychedelic cadmium yellow on a cobalt blue ground could only depict the raw organic nature of Los Gázquez for me.
What I gained at the residency was a different pathway of thinking in my practice. The people, architecture, and nature they all planted new seeds of contemplation in me. When I left the residency I felt content and blessed. I appreciate what Donna and Simon have created for artists and I am incredibly grateful for my experience at Joya: AiR”.
Anahita Akhavan
Chia-Yen Wang was born in Taipei, Taiwan. She received her MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London in London in 2016. Her works are mainly related to mixed media installation and imagery. With a background in business, visual communication, and lighting design, she likes to place her focus on the vague area among design, art for the general public, and fine art in a world of capitalism. While attempting to explore the visual sense of aesthetics which are loved by the general public, her works also examine the relationship between space and surrounding objects, as well as the language embedded into them. These designed and selected materials, along with the final products form a variety of visual symbols which in turn, represent the meaning and status hidden in the structure of our social, economic, and cultural realm.
Currently, she is working on the objects that come from construction sites, and lighting projects related to power structures and authority. Her approach is both layered and expansive, with individual elements of the work emerging in an ambiguous manner. She is attempting to construct a microcosm while decoding the strategy and meaning of the visual symbols behind social spectacle in modern cities and urban spaces.
"En el período en que fui residente de Joya: Air, pude reflexionar estéticamente sobre la práctica artística que he venido realizando, la cual se desenvuelve desde los nuevos medios, en torno a los contenidos de identidad cultural y territorio. En un tiempo y espacio que estuvo completamente en función de mi proceso creativo, —en oposición con la alienación propia del hombre de sus valores espirituales en las grandes ciudades, de la que soy parte— disfruté registrando y experimentando en los esculturales y calmos paisajes del parque natural Sierra de María-Los Vélez, que me permitieron vislumbrar potenciales líneas de trabajo.
Compartí experiencias con artistas de diferentes culturas, en donde surgieron diálogos en torno a la actividad creativa, sus diferencias disciplinares, las realidades sociales, políticas y económicas de cada uno, que sin duda aporta a las búsquedas autorales que realizó. Me sentí estimulado observando los procesos creativos individuales de los artistas, los que se fundían con los interiores y exteriores de una estancia de belleza patrimonial.
Estoy agradecido por haber sido parte de este distintivo proyecto de arte, producto de la pasión y dedicación de sus gestores Donna y Simon, quienes además de hacerse cargo sustentablemente del territorio en el que están, son unos excelentes anfitriones, presentes en todo momento a los requerimientos del artista.
Encontré en Joya: AiR, respuestas a preguntas que fueron contestadas en un ambiente de reflexión y producción, tanto en el interior como exterior del inmueble que nos residió, entre bosques, sierras, caminos, memoria, diálogos, reciprocidad. Y lo que es mejor, otras estimulantes cuestionantes surgieron”.
37°45'20.8"N 2°03'10.3”W
Gerardo Tirapegui Flores
https://vimeo.com/user38331474
Gerardo Tirapegui (Santiago, 1989) es egresado de Licenciatura en Turismo y Cultura de la Universidad de Valparaíso, Diplomado de Postítulo Producción Gráfica, Video y Fotografía de la Universidad de Chile y actualmente cursa el Magíster en Artes Mediales de la Universidad de Chile. Ha participado en instancias artísticas de exhibición, tanto colectiva como individualmente, y también interviniendo de forma instalativa el espacio público. Los intereses del artista se abocan a las relaciones entre individuo y territorio y sus intersticios. La forma de trabajar sus combinatorias, sonoras y visuales, son a través de la creación y programación de aplicaciones tecnológicas, la fractura de la imagen digital, la electrónica, el video, la utilización de microcontroladores y sensores para vincular el entorno físico con el digital. Aborda contenidos como la identidad y homogeneización cultural, la globalización, el consumismo y el territorio como contenedor de las anteriores.
“The time to reflect and reconsider your practice is often overlooked or neglected in favour of production. While at Joya, the opportunity to slow down and pay attention to some of the natural anchors in your work cannot be underestimated. It has been a privilege to walk in the beautiful Sierra María-Los Vélez national park and to bond with a group of artists varying in creative disciplines. The type of thinking achieved here is unique and has made powerful ripples in my life.
As you allow yourself to commit to Joya’s temperament, you become aware of the detail and care that has been taken to create this experience. The subtlety of both Donna and Simon to be available and yet hidden from view allows you to safely commit to deep thinking and the ability to separate yourself from the daily routine that we are all seeking to forget.
The landscape and the people get under your skin in a way that is hard to do justice in words. It is something shared by those who have been in residence at Joya and I imagine every group who passes through has a different shade or hue that colours the landscape.
I look forward to bringing what I have discovered back into my continuing practice in London and hope to uncover elements of my practice I was not aware were going through a transformation.
Thank you”.
Roman Sheppard Dawson
cargocollective.com/romanshepparddawson
Roman Sheppard Dawson is a moving image artist based in London and a Central Saint Martins graduate in fine art 4D. His work has evolved from moving image based sculptures into a practice exploring movement/gesture in the moving image and space.
“The doors of the 2000 Land Rover slammed.
All my senses needed to be readjusted as I stood in the sun - looking at that vast territory of silence.
Joya: AiR was built on an ancient farm, lost in the Sierra Maria-Los Vélez. Yet, whatever the reasons were to settle in such a hostile territory, generations had inhabited and cultivated this land. In these isolated places, inhabitants have a unique relationship with time and history, often protected from the destructive, as well as regenerative, flow of modernity.
Territories, territories, territories; I became obsessed with the idea. I was exploring the land, experiencing it in all its physicality; and allowing the flow of the mental afterimages develop within me.
I wanted the project that I was going to work on to be linked intimately to the environment in which it would be created. Almería is the only region in Western Europe considered as desert. In late August the whole landscape has been dried out under an unforgiving sun, and the presence of water is only revealed through the scars it has left in the land during the storms. The sun. Over a few days I laid papers, partially covering them with cardboard and stones. As an almost esoteric ritual, I removed shapes and stones carefully as the paper was being bleached.
I was interested in using one dimension to reveal a new one: the use of time in order to create space. Newly-opened territories emerged from the ghostly architectures that appeared on the surface. The paper returns to its primary organic nature, adopting the pigmentation of the landscape, inviting us to thread through a new space of rêverie.
As Emerson reminds us in his essay “Nature”, «In the tranquil landscape [...] man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.»
Joya: AiR is that space and time”.
Thibault Duchesne
"Rock solid, impenetrable, arid, harsh .......Dust a second skin over everything. This place – painted with a different palette entirely.....green grey hue, white chalk, lime zing, pink pop, orange zest, bible black Dylan Thomas sky dotted with diamond shine. Expanse humbling in its enormity.
Landscape in all its loveliness - with no apology for its rawness.
In contrast the relaxing nature of Los Gázquez (home of Joya: AiR) enabled me to work at my own pace - exploring issues and concepts which considered the boundaries between urban and rural, interior and exterior space. Taking walks each day across the Sierra then returning to translate the visual 'imprints', I worked using both 3 dimensional and collaged elements which collided, contrasted and evolved over the days. The process resulted in various manifestations, excavations and considerations all of it revolved around the collective domestic buzz of the Beckmann household - warm, caring, sociable and intelligently informative.......the work began to emerge with references to the inside versus outside - a subjective versus objective view of my immediate environment.
There have been interesting developments, shifts in ideas, ways of thinking and an emerging dialogue, often the discourse spilling over into the evenings which were spent eating amazing food, gathering around the wood burner in the evenings flopped on large comfortable sofas, enjoying a glass of wine along with my fellow artists. I will treasure my time here.......truly enhanced by the rich, funny and informative experiences of fellow artists Karin, Hillel, Rachel, Mark, Bob and Marion, with much thanks to Simon, Donna, Soli, Sesi and Max the dog for welcoming me into their home and making my time here so pleasurable and constructive. A huge thank you".
Jill Gibson
http://www.jillgibson.co.uk/
"I arrived at Velez Rubio at night, was collected by Simon and driven through the darkness and indiscernible landscape to Joya: AiR. I was longing for sleep after a fourteen hour journey and was greeted with wonderful food, wine and warmth. I have a vague memory of tumbling into bed.
The morning light was truly astonishing, waking to a view from the bedroom window across the tops of olive trees with a rising mountain set against a clear blue sky in the still , silent air.
I hold firmly to the maxim that everything is defined by it’s context and, given that my allocated studio looked out into a bone-dry mountainous landscape I was wondering to what extent this alien terrain might impact on the work I may produce.
My work is often described as ‘urban’, not least because I have explored ‘bill-board evidence ‘ to generate collages that partake of the social history of a place. A kind of ‘social archeology ‘ where I unpeel the layers of patterns, events and activities and re-frame what I find. It is something I did in other residencies In Thessaloniki, in Venice and in Crete so naturally I collected peeling, torn posters in Granada to enable me to make a start. It is an interesting way to engage with a place and affords focus and time to adjust to the surrounding environment.
Staying at Joya: allowed me to set my own routine, to dip in and out of work when I wanted to and also to remain focused and locked in to whatever I was doing for as long as I wished. I felt completely relaxed throughout my stay and found that even though I worked at a leisurely pace I was able to produce an interesting and varied range of work, whilst appraising and re-appraising the processes I was using.
Each day was rounded with excellent food, wine and conversation and I enjoyed this immensely. Meeting other artists, listening to presentations and also rising to the challenge of presenting and discussing my own practice was stimulating and challenging.
In simple terms, Joya is a tremendous project and I would love to return in the near future".
Bob Lawson
"We dream of time to concentrate on our work: reading, thinking, experimenting and playing with ideas without pressure or the weight of daily existence and chores as a distraction. Time at Joya: AiR affords the realisation of that dream... a light-filled studio. A beautiful, calm house with inspiring things all around, textured surfaces, art, books, wonderful energy and the air filled with the delicious smells of Donna Beckmann's cooking. At night it is silent (apart from the singing crickets) and the stars in the black sky are brilliant. As I walked for hours every day I observed the impact of agriculture on the arid landscape and the patterns created by humans and animals. I noted the specialised flora: pine and juniper trees, wild rosemary, thyme, santolina, and euphorbia. My work was inspired by the stunning landscape around me and go home to my studio with a new body of work and ideas to develop. Thank you Simon and Donna"!
Leah Teschendorff
“My poetry and scholarly work is concerned with the nexus of landscape, society, and politics. Working in the field of postcolonial ecopoetics, my work examines human relationships with the natural environment and how these are affected by the global political economy, both historically and in the present. I am particularly concerned with decolonization and environmental justice and the ways in which environmental literature, as an activist practice, can help to examine and dismantle oppressive political systems and the environmental degradation that results.
I travelled to Joya: AiR to begin a new poetry manuscript after an inspiring research trip to the UK. My new work is a book-length poem that delves into events and experiences of British colonialism in Canada and South Africa in the early nineteenth century. I was particularly interested in coming to Joya: AiR to undertake a period of focused experimentation in a foreign, rural environment. Ordinary prosaic or lyric language is inadequate for expressing the extent of alienation and difficulties experienced by early colonists and the lasting violence and dispossession wrought on the indigenous populations they encountered. My language experiments over the past several weeks have taken me far outside of my ordinary poetic practice and I am inspired and excited by the results. I leave here with a skeleton of a manuscript, many completed poems and a direction for the work ahead.
Thanks to Joya: AiR for an excellent sojourn and to the amazing new network of friends I made during my stay”.
Emily McGiffin
https://www.brickbooks.ca/books/between-dusk-and-night/
“My works synthesise painting, printing, video and digital collage and as such they may be envisaged as a mirror reflecting of conceptual, theoretical, and applied arts. My current research is about occult, mystical and spiritual practices and philosophies and the manifestation of these ideas in contemporary visual and performative art, as well as their relation to the technological era and digital aesthetic.
Joya: AiR was the perfect setting to go deeper into my research, with the energy of the beautiful surroundings, the inspirational presence of the Beckmanns , and being far from all that is familiar”.
Michal Raz
“After spending a fruitful summer in my London studio I came to Joya: AiR looking for a few quiet days of reflection. I wanted to think and write about the work done prior to the residency and also collect some visual information for new work on my return.
I managed to do all that and had a great time. Thank you Donna, Simon, Soli, Sessi, Mark, Nele, Max and Fufu. You are all amazing and made me feel so welcome. I admire this step you took and the life you lead now, it gave me food for thought. I hope to be back one day for a longer period”.
Gabriela Giroletti
“I spent my time at Joya: AiR mainly reflecting and wondering about my art practice. I came here with the intention of focusing on my research without the pressure of coming up with a finished product but by reading, organizing ideas, and thinking about the most relevant topics in my work. In this sense, the environment that Joya offers is absolutely unique and adept to my needs: the silence present in the desert landscape somehow is reflected in my own mind and allowed me to find the perfect environment to work without useless distractions.
Donna and Simon and their family are warm and very welcoming so that I’m already planning the next visit! “
Elisa Carutti
“I came to Joya: AiR with the intention of using the surrounding environment to make site specific art work. I researched the landscape before getting here and had maybe 5 or 6 ideas that I planned to realise. Whilst here I managed just a couple of them successfully, and the others either I couldn’t resolve satisfactorily or decided against for various reasons.
That said, I found being in the landscape and the Joya residence, surrounded by the so many wonderful characters that populated my stay here, new ideas came easily and I was able to ask others to help me complete them. I leave here after a very productive two weeks.
It’s a bit of cliché of course that ‘people make a place’, but I feel extremely fortunate to have spent my time here with such wonderful personalities. I would like to take this opportunity to say a thank you to each of them.
Looking at this blog I’ve read time and again people expressing their fondness and gratitude to Simon and Donna, Soli and Sessi. I have to say all of the praise is deserved. They are fabulous hosts and a lovely family – an inspiration for sure!
Faye, thank you for showing me your beautiful drawings and explaining your very thoughtful project. I look forward to seeing it at the stage of presentation in the future.
Gwenda, whenever I have a boring moment I will return to thinking of your Death on Holiday project and it will certainly bring a smile to my face. You are absolutely hilarious!
Andree, thank you for the beautiful photographs you took of my performances. I have a feeling there is a very successful career ahead of you.
Dipika, your talk was fantastic and your seemingly endless enthusiasm for those things that you feel passionately about is both entertaining and inspiring.
Nele, I’m so pleased you love Techno. Those chats we had about parties were a lot of fun and transported me to a very different time in my life.
Mark, I wish you the best of luck with your future travels and all the time you put into good causes helping those that live in less fortunate circumstances. The world needs more people with your selflessness and kindness.
And finally Kyotee. Thank you for being you and for being in the same place at the same time.
Perhaps all that’s left to say is that I have had a wonderful time here and plan to come back and I’m excited about that idea. Perhaps that is the highest praise I can offer”.
Simon Linington
“I didn’t quite know what to expect from a Joya residency; the description sounded so different from the usual residencies that I went along for the adventure. But the landscape and walking paths surrounding Cortijada Los Gázquez are truly magical…the very second day I wrote out a poem which had been marinating in my head for a month. The day after that — after watching a resident present a very different kind of performance photography — I wrote a short story in a single sitting in a fit of inspiration. Simon and Donna and the twins, along with Max the dog, Fufu the goat, and all seven cats, provide the relaxed chaos of a happy home where artists of all nationalities can forge symbiotic friendships which last beyond a single residency. A truly remarkable experience.”
Dipika Mukherjee
http://www.dipikamukherjee.com
–Shambala Junction, (Novel) 2016. Winner of the 4th Virginia Prize for Fiction.
–Ode to Broken Things, (Novel) 2016. Longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize.
“Joya was a special place to be in contact with nature, myself and sharing ideas with other artists. My project still in development to explore the female essence. The time here allow me to think and open my vision over it being more aware.
I did a short presentation of this project through a performance which was a different path to express it, also combined with photo and video. I feel very happy with this new approach that was presented, also I would like to say thanks to all who collaborated with me on this. In general, was great to meet fantastic people from different nationalities, sharing nice and funny moments, having delicious dinners all together every night.
Thank you for this good experience!
Andree Martis
