“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

http://thibaultduchesne.com/

"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

http://www.boblawsonartist.co.uk/