photo Simon Beckmann

‘La relación con el tiempo que estableces al llegar a JOYA: AiR es tangible y contradictoria: por un lado, el tiempo se suspende como si quedaras atrapado en el frame de una película y, a su vez, los días pasan con una rapidez abrumadora. Esta ruptura con la cronología habitual de nuestras rutinas, da lugar a un ritmo vital alternativo cuyo motor es el equilibrio con la naturaleza. 

Estar una semana en una casa, un entorno y con una gente maravillosa sabe a poco. JOYA: AiR ha sido una experiencia inolvidable en todos los aspectos y cuando vas por primera vez ya estás pensando en el siguiente proyecto que harás cuando vuelvas. La Cortijada Los Gázquez está a tan solo unas horas de Málaga, ciudad donde resido, pero las conversaciones con los compañeros, las cenas en grupo, los paseos por los senderos y la montaña, la infinita tranquilidad… me han permitido escuchar y ver un universo nuevo y sugerente. 

En este entorno del Parque Natural Sierra María-Los Vélez, la naturaleza deja claro que no tiene límites. Asistes como humilde observador a un escenario en el que todo se intensifica y los tonos ocres, amarillos y verdes del campo existen en un tipo de belleza que no se puede captar. Recuerdo la emoción que sentí al llegar a la cima de Sierra Gigante: después de una hora de subida llegué al punto de mayor altitud, giré sobre mi misma en un ángulo de 360° y entendí la grandeza de lo que me rodeaba. Apenas se pueden ver un par de pueblos a lo lejos, y entonces las montañas, campos, árboles, el cielo, te cuentan su historia en silencio. 

Al principio de mi estancia estaba escribiendo e investigando una serie de nociones relacionadas con el movimiento, el cuerpo y la materia, pero los paseos por los alrededores de la casa transformaron, casi sin darme cuenta, las letras en acciones. Andar, escalar, ver, caminar sobre trigo, rocas o barro seco. Estos recorridos que hice desde el primer día, fueron el punto de partida para el proyecto que realicé. Me di cuenta de que el propio acto de caminar e intentar recorrer distintos terrenos hacía conectar mi cuerpo de un modo muy especial con el entorno. No se trataba de andar por una calle, de un edificio a otro, en línea recta, sino que tenía que ver con escuchar  la materialidad del suelo que pisaba y responderante las necesidades. Los campos de cardos, las zonas montañosas con piedras, cada una me llevaba a estar haciendo y siendo de distintas formas. Comencé a interesarme entonces por aprehender todos los matices que surgían en la interacción entre cuerpo y terreno/espacio natural. Capté por un lado los movimientos de las piernas, los brazos, la flexión de las articulaciones, el esfuerzo de los músculos, la dirección de la mirada y, por otro, el tiempo que tardaba en recorrer cada espacio, las emociones, ideas o palabras que surgían en el proceso. A partir de este estudio de campo, realicé una serie de grabaciones en vídeo y de dibujos que están a medio camino entre las instrucciones para entender dichos espacios y la documentación de una suerte de performance que no podemos saber muy bien si es real o imaginaria. 

Tener a Simon y Donna como anfitriones ha sido uno de los mayores placeres. El paisaje y la casa te hacen sentir especial, pero ellos han conseguido cultivar un entorno acogedor en el que no dudas en querer implicarte. Su proyecto vital, que entiende la cultura como agente fundamental en la ecología y conservación del medio ambiente, es inspirador. Vivir en una casa sostenible e independiente basada en técnicas tradicionales, ha sido una gran oportunidad. Toda esta energía positiva y renovadora hacen a JOYA un lugar ideal para investigar, experimentar y sentir. 

Muchas gracias a JOYA: AiR por una experiencia que ha sido pura belleza y que espero pronto volver a disfrutar. 

Delia Boyano 

https://deliaboyano.wixsite.com/site

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / After the Experience 

‘There is something absolutely special about Joya: AiR. I will try to translate into words, although there is so much that I will not be able to capture. In fact, I believe this may define the essence of what I lived there: it being beyond what can be narrated, almost a rare quality of pure experience. 

 On the way to Los Gázquez (home of Joya: AiR) from Vélez Rubio, that’s where my residency began. The roads and the views are breathtaking, they tell you already of beautiful things to come. Los Gázquez is an enchanted place, so calm and peaceful, yet so vibrant. The way I remember it is as an encounter: with your own self, with others, with nature. I felt at home from the very moment I arrived. 

I came to Joya: AiR with the desire to engage physically with the process of painting and try acrylic and pastels on large-scale paper. One of the reasons I paint is to set concepts, reasoning, and judgment aside. Those define my life as a philosophy professor. Abstract painting takes me into a different territory. I wanted to work from within the painting and I wanted to let things happen, just listening, living, and responding to whatever I would have felt when honestly placed in front of nature. That was my project, and so much more has happened. 

I spent my time as it unveiled, naturally. There were no constraints, no expectations. I found myself producing much more than I ever expected. There was an energy in the space, in the silence, in the interactions, in the conversations that inspired me endlessly. It was an inner urgency, an urgency without urgency. The studio I was offered was a sacred space, so beautiful. I just loved my time spent there, I felt as living within the process of creation. 

I got to Joya: AiR with a creative project and I found myself into much more and much higher than the mine. Time there has been a time for reflection on how to live, a reminder of how effortless and rich life can be, if lived and savoured in all its simplicity. 

Time gets back to lived time, as opposed to clock time. Nature gets back to all its majesty and power. Things get back to their thingness. Labels get stripped and you encounter nature for what it is. A tree, a road, a sunset, a stone, a sound, the wind, the moon, they are back to be what they are. Nature regains its sublimity.

I remember very vividly the awe and respect, the exhilaration, but also the uneasiness and discomfort, and even the pain I felt just looking at nature. At times, a sunset was too much to take in. It has been such an awakening and humbling experience just to be there. There is something absolutely humbling and unifying about taking walks in pure solitude or having dinner with your new friends under a sky full of stars. It is a strong sense of belonging. 

Donna and Simon: Thank you for your warmth and your generosity, your inspiring conversations and our laughs, and the fabulous, fabulous dinners.  

Thank you to all the beautiful and generous artists, my companions in this adventure. I owe you so much. I am so deeply grateful for all the time and the experiences we shared. I felt as living in an embrace. 

I hope to be back one day. Thank you from my deepest heart’. 

Alessandra Stradella

M.A. in Philosophy at Georgia State University (2002), and a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Emory University (2008). Assistant Professor in Philosophy with a specialisation in Philosophy of Art at Philadelphia since 2008. 

March 2019, awarded the third prize for Abstract Painting at the Annual Exhibition at Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia. 2019 participated to the Collective Exhibit, Art et Al., Da Vinci Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA.

Publications in Academia: “Performance Art and the Seduction of Theatricality,” Philosophy Study, 2012, “The Fiction of the Standard of Taste: David Hume on the Social Constitution of Beauty,” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 2012, “On Grief: An Aesthetic Defense,” Philosophical Practice, 2011, “The Dramatic Nature of Our Selves: David Hume and the Theatre Metaphor,” Literature and Aesthetics, 2010. 

photo Simon Beckmann

”My first plan to spend time at Joya: AiR was to look back my photos from the past, and select and edit from there. It’s easy for me to just keep taking photos, but not really spend time to look what I have.

Presentation became huge help on this process, and I could find different prospective on my work.

It was more than just work, I am able to find myself from other direction.

Because of conversations with other artists, witnessing their creations, approach to the work, their endless curiosity and passion brought me deeper understanding for my work and myself. It showed me freedom and expansion in creation, and gave me new theme and inspirations. It was such a gift, it almost some sort of healing. Time in Joya: AiR was more than I expected”.

Kazumi Sakurai

photo Simon Beckmann

“Joya made  the words of Edmund Husserl make much more sense to me,

Bodies are given as having the sense of being earthly bodies and space is given as having the sense of earth - space. The totality of WE, of human beings or ‘animated beings’, is in this sense earthly and has no contrary in the non earthly. The earth is therefore neither just a globe (a body among many celestial bodies) nor just a spatial container for human life, but the horizon of the world and the precondition for sensation. 

The isolation, the connection with nature, the silence and the closeness to the stars, the crickets, the sunset theatre every 9:15 pm, the wind that became a sensible background sound and the vast landscape of the mountains reminded me how small we are in comparison to our surrounded earth and universe but at the same time the human intervention in a cooperation and inevitable connection to the landscape that could be felt so deeply. I could feel the earth, I could feel life and dryness co-existing and I could pay attention to it. I did  many walks to observe it, shared many chats to describe it, spent a lot of time doing nothing but being in sync with it - with out any guilt of not being productive, It felt so important and pure to do this. 

Simon and Donna’s house felt like home. Like an invite to come and bring us back again  to the basic notions of belonging. We shared chats, life stories, dinners, laughs, sensitive talks and and a vibe and energy not too easy to find. A remembrance of how innovative but yet pure humans can be and remain. I should mention the amazing food Donna prepared for us and Simon’s music that was adding the right note for us to feel so engaged to the place and to each other. 

I developed work that  emerged in a very natural and intuitive manner  from the thoughts that nature is not a site that is subjected to human signification. Nature cannot be contained within, or reproduced as, an artwork, the earth appears as a temporal or sensorial plethora at the limit of representational form. 

Using the land as a sculptural medium, I looked into earth art a lot, something that initiated to me an interrogation of how the elusive presence of nature problematizes the drive to represent. I was drawn to contradictions, to natural sculptures I could find around and the visual metaphors and the ironies they brought out to me. That of course after I gave meaning to them through the way I looked at them, and that itself became part of the work.  I could feel that I was trying to find ways to interpret the place in my mind yet I was also trying to understand all the circles and connections that I could make to the human body. I remembered why humans are part of nature, something we usually forget just because we usually work against it. 

The results challenged the way I usually produce work concluding to a combination of elements like  post-minimalist sculpture to body art performances, installation and photographic/spatial interventions.  

obra - Nasia Papavasiliou @joyaair

Joya: AiR, found a way to immediately get me back in touch to my senses and then my practice. Two elements that shouldn’t be separated, and that was a great reminder. 

The sunset meeting point was a great example of how similar we all are, and how as simple as that, we all have something in common, we are observers who may have come from different parts of the world yet the sun and the moon will always be understood the same way. 

Joya: AiR, muchisimas gracias”. 

Nasia Papavasiliou

Nasia is a Greek Cypriot performance practitioner and graduate of Central Saint Martins college of Art and Design in MA Performance Design and Practice. She is currently a Teaching and Learning Assistant tutor for the equivalent BA course of Performance at CSM. Her research and practice is site-specific and she studies the artistic representations of lived experiences in different locations. Her work looks into how these can help to identify thought processes, make critical interventions and engage in conversation about social structures.
Her practice is based on a socio-anthropological methodology that relies on ethnographic fieldwork methods and participant and (or) personal observation positioning. She creates both theatre and gallery based work, whilst she uses both outdoor and urban spaces. Her most recent works were shown and exhibited in London (Zabludowicz collection, Barbican Centre and Platform Theatre King's Cross), Athens (Metaxourghion Theatre) and Cyprus (Point Centre of Contemporary Art).

photo Simon Beckmann

"Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature." -David Holmgren.

“My time at Joya: AiR was an authentic, beautiful and tranquil experience from the scenery, to the people, to the day to day living. Joya AiR was a perfect time for me to reflect and work at my own pace after the pressures of University.

Within the unspoilt landscapes of Los Gázquez (Joya: AiR), I explored natural forms and shapes, observing and appreciating the details, and directly interacting with my surroundings through printmaking and other mixed media processes. Getting to know other creatives and their working processes was an insightful and exciting part of the studio environment.

Walking down to the riverbed was my favourite place to discover, where it felt like time had stood still and watching Pepe the shepherd herd the goats and sheep of a day was a beautiful escape from busy modern life. As such I became conscious of the history of the Cortijada Los Gázquez which created a magical atmosphere during my stay, mindful of life that had lived and breathed here before.

It was so inspiring to see how Simon and Donna put a sustainable and off-grid lifestyle into practice down to every detail. Part of my research here was observing the ecological systems put into play, which is something I will take away with me as an on-going project.

Thank you Simon and Donna for the most wonderful experience”!

Lucy Topp

https://lucytopp.myportfolio.com

photo Simon Beckmann

Ten sunsets (each distinct)

An electrical storm tracking north across the valley.

An excess of light

Stars (to begin) like I have rarely seen. After dinner, head thrown back

Then, the moon. White clay floodlit.

Walking the barranco, uncoiling westward. 

White dust, soft rock, Aleppo Pine.

Space and time to think. Or not.

The sound of goat-bells.

Easy silences.

(and ping pong)

- Thank you Simon and Donna for creating such a welcoming space 

(and the wonderful meals!)

www.johngalvinartist.com

photo Simon Beckmann

"I’m a sculptor and practice-based PhD student, researching the meaning that is embodied in material, and the ways in which it can absorb social and political narratives. My sculptures investigate the treatment and consumption of bodies, theories, objects and artworks. 

I came to Joya: AiR to explore and examine ways in which raw material can reveal itself in completed artworks, overflowing from the finished product as opposed to disappearing into the surface. This is important in my work, as my sculptures intend to demonstrate that material cannot be completely controlled but rather resists our intentions and, in doing so, influences our social behaviour. 

I studied the earth around Joya: AiR, which is composed of beautiful silky clay. It is stark white, soft beige, salmon pink and coffee brown. It is velvet sand and hard stone. Rather than making, I spent my time here capturing the various ways the clay around me reacted to my interventions.  I immersed myself in this material, examining the ways it could be smeared with water, kneaded into dough or crumbled into dust between fingers. I documented the different forms, colours and states it existed in. I also recorded my observations and transcribed them, creating a text based work which reflected the materiality of the clay in written language. 

Navigating this landscape increased my awareness of the material around me, and drew attention to the ways in which our encounters with it can shape our understanding of the world. From this research, I have developed strategies for drawing out the materiality of substances, which I will bring back to my studio in order to represent material as temperamental, messy and unexpected in my finished sculptures."

Ellie Barrett

photo Simon Beckmann

“Experiencing the drought of a desert-like landscape certainly deepens appreciation for water. 

This was among the first realisations I had during my stay with Donna & Simon. They kindly invited me to spend a few days in their tranquil home which bears a charm difficult to describe. 

In the seclusion of Joya: AiR many things have fallen into place for me. 

Since I am questioning the materialistic aspects of my lifestyle I was hoping to get a glimpse of a verified more sustainable approach just as well as room for letting my mind wander and for finding the muse to pick up a drawing pencil again. Joya: AiR turned out to provide the perfect setting for all of that: A spacious exploration area free of schedules while full of opportunities; peacefully embedded in untouched wilderness. 

The harsh conditions for nature would suggest absence of diversity, but the opposite is the case. The air is filled with vibrancy of humming bees and flies, and there was another soothing sound that attracted my attention since the moment I arrived – the wind turbine. This turbine is an essential power source feeding Joya: AiR and its guests with electricity and is just one example of the thought-through concept which implements the natural constraints and benefits given in that area.

I explored the scenery with all my senses. Visually, I grasped the vegetation while going for walks and hikes, supplied with a sketchbook or my camera. Thereby eagles, rabbits and a fox have crossed my path. The odours of dry grass, wild rosemary and pine trees were omnipresent; the taste buds were tickled every night by a delicious food creation. Los Gázquez is also tactile as the ground is based on clay and can be turned into anything imaginable upon moisturising. 

So while my body sunk into a mode of pure relaxation, the brain remained stimulated due to lively exchange of thoughts, worries and ideas with multifaceted artists who were sharing time with me at this distinct place. I got highly inspired to immerse myself further into the artistic world and motivated to work on my personal contribution when it comes to downsizing the threat we pose to our environment. The impact may be a small one, but I hope to become a seed for friends, family and local communities to follow a less destructive path and strengthen awareness. Joya: AiR, made a lasting impression. The spark leaped over”. 

Tatjana Hirschmugl

Tatjana is a research scientist holding a Masters degree from the University of Vienna. She currently works as a laboratory assistant at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Lung Vascular Research in Graz. Previously she worked as a research assistant at CeMM Research Centre for Molecular Medicine in Vienna. Her research interests are the genetics of malignant and immune system disorders.

She also has a strong background & knowledge of  fluorescence microscopy, next-generation sequencing techniques, human genetics, and an advanced application of graphic design/image processing tools.

photo Simon Beckmann

For Joya: AIR I created two new pieces: 1) One for Each Hand consists of two stones cased in crochet. Initially, I intended to place them in trees. As I became familiar with them as objects that comfortably fit into one’s hands, though, it became obvious that they invite some kind of a task (e.g., weighing, throwing, juggling). The gauging of the right action makes them “land art pieces for one body at a time,” playfully interacting with our surroundings. As opposed to traditional land art, which often aims at grand interventions, One for Each Hand puts forth a more direct relationship between body and land.

‘one for each hand’ Richard Jochum

2) Speaks for Itself, a temporary installation, consists of five shopping bags attached to a tree branch. The plastic bags, icons of an unsustainable life form, conjure up the motto of the Joya residency: art + ecology. As a gesture, they are simple: arranged in one neat line and floating in the wind, they project calm and peace rather than what they have come to represent: decades of waste. Both sides co-exist.  

‘speaks for itself’ Richard Jochum

The two pieces are based on materials readily available at this desert-residency site and the bodily constraints that I brought with me during this time (shoulder injury), which limited the radius of my actions. With great thanks to the residency hosts Simon and Donna Beckmann and my fellow residents for their support, particularly Tatjana Hirschmugl for teaching me to crochet and Michael Aspli for performing”. 

 -----

Richard Jochum PhD MFA

Associate Professor of Art and Art Education

Teachers College, Columbia University

http://richardjochum.net

http://ctc.tc.columbia.edu

http://tc.columbia.edu/arted

photo Simon Beckmann

‘Being removed from the pressure to produce and present any outcome in the end, I was able to take time to listen to my intuition in order to understand which creative direction to take next when I am back from the residency. These two weeks were crucial for me to realise how much I used to be driven by my noisy rational mind in any creative pursuits. So I spent most of the studio time doing intuitive drawings with oil pastels listening to my body and being driven by inner impulses, dismissing any reasoning that came from my conscious mind. The process of making these drawings was very helpful for my creative self-liberation because I shifted my focus and put more value into the actual process rather than the outcome.

Every day I spent some time hiking, connecting with the unique environment and biodiversity of Sierra María-Los Vélez, meditating outside. I took the opportunity of being surrounded by so many plant species unknown to me to document the variety of shapes I found, so I can use this vocabulary of plant forms in my future projects.

Studio time and time spent in nature was of great healing importance to me but the interactions and conversations with people I met in Joya: AiR were equally transformative. Every dinner meal shared together was nourishing for the body and mind. Simon and Donna’s impressive efforts put into creating such a place and caring for the land made me expand my understanding of possible ways an artist can contribute to the restoration and healing of damaged and/or abandoned environments’.

Nadya Eidelstein www.nadyscreatures.com

Nadya Eidelstein is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Toronto, Canada. She received her BA from Central Saint Martins, London, UK. ​Since graduation she has been working on the border between machine-made and handmade approaches, trying to define what makes these ways of making different, how they are similar, and how to blur the definitions of man-made and computer-made.

photo Simon Beckmann

Milla Eastwood

Reflections In Sierra Maria - Los Vélez

Contained within this body are the veins of the yellow Vella Spinosa, the mothering Winds and energies of Time. Sinking into the stillness, movements become sounds. Observing the voices of parched grey roots and the graceless tread of beetles. There is a quality in the air, encouraging us to slow our pace. Reaching the zenith of the mountain. Existence here, gives a sense of wholeness. Reminding us of the spheres Oneness. 

Milla Eastwood 

"Then as I leaned, listening, a bud of light seemed to form and expand within me, opening and opening, wider and faster; and the brilliance increased and I was filled with waves of light until I bore within myself a shining universe, worlds of splendour; and through them the wind still blew, another, yet the same wind that blew over the external earth and sky, fusing their outwardness with this world within."

Borrowed from my great grandmother Dorothea Eastwood, Valleys Of Springs.

https://www.millaeastwood.com/

​Milla Eastwood completed her BA ​in Fine Art: Painting ​from Wimbledon College of Arts, London, UK ​and her Foundation CCW from Camberwell College of Arts, London UK. Selected exhibitions in London include ​solo shows Cable Salad and Drunk On Colour, The Dot Project​​ Gallery; group shows include​ Love In A Cold Climate, The Dot Project Gallery; Mark Shand's Adventures and Curiosities, Hauser and Wirth​.

photo Simon Beckmann

 “As we continue to map, network, and compute the foreseeable future, we neglect to transmit new ways of thinking between the past and present. Uncertainty mars our ability to think through analogy and metaphor. Finding solutions only resolve finite problems. As we attempt to  articulate and decipher an outcome, another moment has passed. Our natural world is now rejecting, rapidly mutating and disrupting our built environments. We must look behind, ahead, around and through in order to reorganize and rearrange. Time, distance, and space now longer become appendages to the conscious.  Time fractures, breaks and falls in-between the scales. Prior to arriving and since leaving Los Gázquez (Joya: AiR) I've been thinking about present time and all of its dimensions. In the poem entitled, The Century— Vek Moi, Osip Mendelstam writes:

So long as the creature lives

it must carry forth its vertebrae,

as the waves play along

with an invisible spine.

Like a child’s tender cartilage

is the century of the newborn earth.

To wrest the century away from bondage

so as to start the world anew

one must tie together with a flute

the knees of all the knotted days.

/But your backbone has been shattered

O my wondrous, wretched century.

With a senseless smile

Like a beast once limber

you look back, weak and cruel,

to contemplate your own tracks.

Osip Mendelstam “The Century (Vek Moi)” extracted from Giorgio Agamben “What Is the Contemporary?” (Stanford University Press, 2009)  pg. 42-43.

Andrew Obernesser’s work investigates myth, meaning, and animism through the process of constructing synthetic ecologies. By the process of object making and writing, Obernesser explores what forms of communication and information are being exchanged among the living and nonliving, what narratives are being ascribed between ancient lifeforms and inanimate objects.

Obernesser graduated with a BA in Art from Colorado College in 2017. He attended Virginia Commonwealth University’s  Sculpture + Extended Media  Summer Studio Program in 2017. He currently lives in works in Chicago, Illinois. 

photo Simon Beckmann

“I climbed up a mountain today and came back down altered, thinking like a mountain…” notebook excerpt day 8, Joya:AiR residency

“I am a lens based artist exploring earth matters, the push pull of the human/nature dialogue, and our Western lost sense of relationship and reciprocity with the animate natural world.

 It is an embodied practice that is in conversation with sensuous encountering from the space in between – walking with my camera and feeling my way into the non-human world around us, in touch with our nested relationship with the planet, and its with us. As such, I felt that Los Gázquez, the home of Joya: AiR, would be an incredible opportunity, and I was not disappointed. From my arrival to the morning I left 10 days later, when the mountains were cloaked in smoky low cloud laying thick dew over the parched landscape, I was enthralled. Simon and Donna welcome artists into their beautifully restored cortijada and together they nurture a collective spirit of exploration, creative endeavour and community stimuli.

 The house is a cool, white flowing space beautifully crafted and decorated where you can find stillness and quiet to work or rest; and then in the evenings a real sense of community emerges with the other residents; I had so many fascinating and stimulating conversations before, during and after the always excellent dinners. Simon and Donna have created a place that just holds and nurtures you, with a strong sense of community that also enables you to make work without distraction; it is a rare combination. 

Each day I would wake up excited by the potential of making. The off-grid remoteness of Los Gázquez instills a sense of peace and calm, enabling you to be within the quiet space of the present untempered by memory and desire. Working at a primal level, I was drawn immediately to the hot, bone white limestone space of the barranco below the cortijada, a fluvial gorge, deep cut, snaking its dry way down the valley, redolent of a huge boiling, rushing and tumbling and roaring mass of water that carries with it rocks boulders, sediment, fossils, tree roots, carving and scratching and gouging out new paths and gullies as it forces its way through the landscape. Now it is almost completely dry and still, save for a few pools higher up that were harbouring strings of black pearls, the beautiful expression of toad spawn. There is a spell that the place casts, and I feel it still, strange beauty and total peace save for the wind in the pines that pepper the landscape above, and birdsong, burning white hot powdered limestone, baked, cracked, moulded, so primal, like the primordial soup we humans climbed out of eons back. Embracing the immediate, unexplored ecologies of the present, untempered by the disconnecting force of language, I was able to work in the utterness of solitude in the thickness of the present in the hot white space of the barranco. I encountered a landscape that returned the strength of my gaze, that I struggled with at times, and where the magic spell of love, of falling, entered my veins enabling me to go deeper and deeper into connecting. 

I do not know yet whether the mass of work I made whilst I was there will translate into a body of work that resonates with others, but I feel, sense that it might. I always need time, lived time to give me distance from any making experience. I can then begin to tease out the various side tributaries that I followed and dig into the core of the work. Whatever the outcome, I know that my experience at Los Gázquez has altered me slightly at tectonic level, like the barranco after a fresh deluge, my banks and bedrock have been shifted…and for that I am very grateful. Thank you Simon and Donna, my fellow artists Sissel, Andrew, Milla and Suzana; and of course Frida the giant schnauzer”. 

Gin Rimmington Jones

http://ginrimmingtonjones.com/

Gin Rimmington Jones, is a photographic artist based in Brighton, UK

2016-2018 MA in Photography at the University of Brighton

photo Simon Beckmann

“What best describes my stay at Joya: AiR is this passage written be David Abram, so I will borrow his words:

“To my animal body, the rock is first and foremost another body engaged in the world: as I turn my gaze toward it, I encounter not a defined and inanimate chunk of matter but an upturned surface basking in the sun’s warmth, or a pink and sharp- edged structure protruding from the ground like the shattered bone of the hillside, or an old and watchful guardian of this land — a resolute and sheltering presence inviting me now to crouch and lean my spine against it.

Each thing organizes the space around it, rebuffing or sidling up against other things; each thing calls, gestures, beckons to other beings or battles them for our attentions; things expose themselves to the sun or retreat among the shadows, shouting with their loud colors or whispering with their seeds; rocks snag lichen spores from the air and shelter spiders under their flanks; clouds converse with the fathomless blue and metamorphose into one another; they spill rain upon the land, which gathers in rivulets and carves out canyons; skyscrapers slice the winds and argue with one another over the tops of townhouses; backhoes and songbirds are coaxed into duets by the percussive rhythm of the subway beneath the street. Things “catch our eye” and sometimes refuse to let go; they “grab our focus” and “capture our attention”, and finally release us from their grasp only to dissolve back into the overabundant world. Whether ecstatic or morose, exuberant or exhausted, everything swerves and trembles; anguish, equanimity, and pleasure are not first internal moods but passions granted to us by the capricious terrain.”

Excerpt from “Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology” by David Abram - Alliance for Wild Ethics 2011.

Sissel Thastum is a visual artist working with photography, video and sound. She is currently based in Trondheim, Norway, where she is taking her masters at Trondheim Academy of Fine Art.
Her current work evolves around the notion of kinship, care and belonging between species; sentient and non-sentient beings. Through the mediums of moving images and sound the work explores (re)connection to nature and its sensing language, and how we might be able to learn and exchange through this natural language.

In 2013 She initiated and co-founded the art organisation The Independent AIR, which arranges exhibitions, artist talks, artist residencies, workshops and cultural events in Silkeborg, Denmark and internationally. Between 2014 and 2017 The Independent AIR was collaborating with the Aarhus 2017 Foundation, officially being part of the “Aarhus 2017, European Capital of Culture”. The current focus of work of the organisation is interdisciplinary collaborations within visual art, creative/poetic writing, research and non-profit art organisations addressing global warming and ecological crisis.

www.sisselthastum.com www.theindependentair.com www.independentsustainability.com

photo Simon Beckmann

“Simon and Donna have converted Los Gázquez (Joya: AiR) into a place of beauty and solitude. It has a warmth that feels supportive without being intrusive and the pace is easy and unhurried. It is also gives you a fascinating insight into a life-long project of ecology and sustainability in one of the driest regions in Spain. 

Arriving at night after a long day travelling, I immediately felt at home surrounded by an inspiring personal collection of art, textiles and ceramics and an impressive display of local fossils that became my daily riverbed challenge!

Placed in the most extraordinary landscape of the Parque Natural - Sierra Maria, Los Gázquez is surrounded by a panorama of breath taking views. Walking or climbing, there are mountains, forests, fields and riverbeds where you are unlikely to see a soul. Coming from a small busy town on the Kent coast  that in itself felt like a luxury. 

This is a visual, and sensory landscape of textures, colours and aromas and if you are lucky you may get an occasional sighting of Andalucían wildlife. 

Walking became part of my daily routine, both thought provoking and meditative, feeding into my work, making subtle shifts and taking my creative practice in new and unexpected directions. 

In the evening, the main focus in the house was tasting the most wonderfully creative dishes prepared by Donna whilst sharing our stories and experiences. It’s not often in life one has the opportunity to share mealtimes with a disparate group of artists from around the world. It was a deeply enriching and inspiring experience”.

Karen Radford

https://www.theprintblock.com/section628947_688290.html

photo Simon Beckmann

“Joya: AiR is a beautiful space with vast landscapes. I felt that just breathing in the area was satisfactory.  

The studio with amazing view made me productive so I started my first still-life drawings with the objects what I found there. 

Everything that I met there was inspirational from stones to a goat. One of my drawings inspired by the surrounding environment was like a children's book illustration so I am planning to make a book about the goat 'Fou Fou.'

This was the best choice for my first residency. Simon and Donna was very considerate and all the artists were dedicated.

I appreciate that I could have the experience in Joya: AiR and look forward to see that how the experience appear in my art and life¨. 

Jihye Seo

www.artjseo.com

Education:
2014-2019 Goldsmiths, University of London, BA Fine Art

Solo Exhibition:
2019, Roastingrobo Gallery, Daegu, S.Korea

Group Exhibition:
2018, SEA-FEVER, The Auction Collective, London
2018, FLOCK 2018, GX Gallery, London
2017, Emerging Artists Breaking Out To The World, Goldsmiths ICCE x Art, London

photo Simon Beckmann

“The future can feel like a faraway place. Uncertain. Uncared for. Intangible. My current practice explores how we can build proximity with the future. Materialise the unknown. Give voice to its hidden narratives. Using design fiction and reverse archeology, my work aims to provoke a creative dialogue about sustainability. I do this by finding artefacts from the future in my present environments. While archeology recovers artefacts to build narratives about the past, “reverse archeology” both recovers and creates artefacts to speculate narratives about the future (Candy, 2013). During my time in Joya: AiR, I began to recover artefacts from the surrounding land of Cortijada Los Gázquez. Using photography and creative writing I began to contemplate: What would these artefacts share about the future of the land? The residency gave me a space to explore with ease, learn from nature and to question whats next for my practice”.

Nourhan Hegazy

https://nourhanhegazy.myportfolio.com/

photo Simon Beckmann

“My residency at Joya: AiR was supported by the Grantham Art Prize, an award from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Royal College of Art. I had proposed to make spinach anthotypes of the B46 Iceberg that has become detached from the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica. The detachment of this iceberg will contribute to rising ocean levels and is a clear indicator of warming in the polar regions. Some of these images were created by the NASA Earth Observatory, a satellite which monitors the Earth from space”.

Melanie King

“As part of the Grantham Art Prize, I wanted to draw attention to this tragic and monumental event, highlighting the rupture point where the iceberg departed. Instead of using environmentally damaging photographic process, I used the spinach anthotype process and sunlight at Joya Arte and Ecologica, to bleach the image into existence.  To make an anthotype, you blend spinach leaves into a paste with a small amount of vodka and water. The next step was to strain the paste into a thin liquid, which can then be painted onto watercolour paper”.

Melanie King

“I built up three layers of “paint”, leaving each layer to dry between each coat. At Joya, I placed a positive transparency of the NASA Earth Observatory images of the B46 Iceberg on top of the coated paper, clamped underneath a heavy piece of glass. After four hours of strong sunlight, I was left with an image due to the naturally photosensitive properties of the chlorophyll within the spinach. Within the exhibition at Imperial College London, the anthotypes will slowly fade with time, mirroring the fragility of our natural environment”.

“At Joya: AiR, I was particularly struck by the dryness of the landscape,  apparently the driest landscape in Europe. Unexpectedly, I was drawn to photographing the dusty, pale limestone ground as it resembled the surface of the Moon. Out taking photographs of the stars at night, I imagined standing within a lunar landscape observing the cosmos”.

Melanie King

Melanie King

“I was inspired by the sustainable attitude to building and adapting to the local environment. Simon says that the building is 98% carbon neutral, due to the clever use of solar and wind energy production. Waste from the building is filtered into reed beds, meaning that this waste doesn’t enter the landscape. It was also interesting to hear from Simon about his plans to regenerate the land surrounding Joya: AiR, and how the introduction of culture to the area may help to re-cultivate land that has been abandoned”.

Melanie King

“Due to the remote, quiet location of Joya: AiR, I was extremely productive during my six day residency. I created anthotypes, had plenty of solitude for writing towards my PhD, took analogue photos of the stars for my “Ancient Light” series, went on many restorative walks and even had room for unexpected projects that I hadn’t planned”.

Melanie King

Melanie King is an artist and curator with a specific focus on astronomy.  She is co-Director of super/collider, Lumen Studios and the London Alternative Photography Collective.  She is a lecturer on the MA programme at the Royal College of Art, and on the BA Photography course at University of West London. Melanie is a part time doctoral student at the Royal College of Art. 

Melanie's solo exhibitions include Leeds Art University and the Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London. She has exhibited in group shows at The Photographers' Gallery, Argentea Gallery, Guest Projects, Space Studios and the Sidney Cooper Gallery. Melanie has also exhibited in a wide range of international galleries, such as the Williamson Gallery in Los Angeles, CAS Gallery in Japan and Unseen Amsterdam.  Melanie has attended residencies organised by Bow Arts, Grizedale Forest and SIM Reykjavik, Iceland.

Melanie has been involved in a number of large scale commissions, including Green Man Festival, Vivid Projects, Bompas and Parr X Citizen M Hotel,  Mayes Creative, Design Miami x COS Stores, Chelsea Flower Fringe and the Wellcome Trust.

Melanie regularly presents her work at conferences, universities and galleries. Notable venues include the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Photographers' Gallery, Tate Modern, Art Center Pasadena, University of the Arts Helsinki, The European Geosciences Conference: Vienna, Kosmica: Mexico, Kosmica: Paris, Helsinki Photomedia and Second Home. Melanie has provided guest lectures to Bath Spa University, Leeds Art University, London South Bank University, London College of Communication,  Central Saint Martins International Space University: Space Studies Programme.

Melanie has demonstrated Moholy Nagy's photogram process on-screen for the BBC4 Bauhaus Rules documentary. Melanie has also provided an on-screen interview and telescope demonstration for the "She Takes The Night" film produced by Museum of London and Photofusion. 

Melanie also organises participatory workshops in relation to her practice. She has developed workshops for the TATE Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, The Photographers' Gallery, TATE Exchange, the Institute of Physics, East Street Arts, Kosmica: Mexico, SALT Festival: Norway,  London College of Communication Short Courses,  Photofusion, Phytology, Hackney Arts, Ditto Press and Brighton Photo Biennal. 

BELOW: more photographs from Melanie Kings ‘Ancient Light’ series of photographs taken at Joya: AiR…

Melanie King

Melanie King

Melanie King

Melanie King

Melanie King

photo Simon Beckmann

“I started my masters research about environmental issues last year, I have been thinking about how art practices can reflect to it. Having a residency at Joya: AiR is no doubt a place where brought me inspiration and provided an environment for me to push my research idea further than staying in an urban city.

A week staying in Joya: AiR is a short but memorable experience. In the first few days, I finished a short essay for a magazine, and drafted another one with me fully able to concentration in the spacious studio with a French window facing the spectacular landscape. When I was not working, I took long walks, exploring the area with other residents. We shared ideas, our projects or even just talking our life stories while hiking in the rocky mountains, spring forests and the steep riverbed. It was inspiring to work together and to go through the whole processes of exploring, coming up with ideas, and testing the found materials, such as clay, stone, and plants. The rest of the days, I also did reading about the topic of materiality which concreted my research and formulated my potential future plan of making a publication. Joya: AiR is truly a good place for meditating, working productively and meeting amazing people from all around the world”!

Ya Tien Shih . https://yatienshih.wordpress.com/curatorialproject/whentheyflow/

photo Simon Beckmann

“I went to Joya: AiR seeking patterns of place and how place marks us. Specifically how we hold these markings in the body memory: the smell of home, the topography of the sight line, the way the foot holds the ground.

Inspired by environmental artist, Michele Stuart, I came with paper mounted on muslin to do rubbings in graphite and crayon to collect patterns literally from place: bark, cracks in mud, olive tree leaves.

While looking for patterns in nature, Joya: AiR inspired me to consider human patterns as well. How can our daily habits (our patterns) help ecosystems, create better water systems, restore soil, use energy when it is abundant and not when it is scarce? Fitting into to these natural systems and supporting them seemed to create a whole new form of beauty. Could it be that when we are most naturally aligned with the cycles of life patterns of the earth is when we, too, are most beautiful? 

I come away still wondering how we can remember that we are not separate from the earth, but part of it. And that that relationship, this vital relationship, should be of primary concern, not a thoughtless consequence of living. 

I’ll bring back these patterns and combine them with a figurative sculpture through 3D printing. I’m interested in this ‘Embodied Place’. Can the body and body memories of place (of home)  - info in the body – these patterns, images and symbols from nature that become an intricate part of us – part of our body memory  be a valuable metaphor for deepening our relationship w/nature and ourselves”?

The night is beautiful,
So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful,
So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful, also, is the sun.
Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people.

Langston Hughes

Kimberly Callas is a sculptor and Social Practice artist working in both Maine and New Jersey, USA. She uses both handmade and emerging technologies to combine the human body with patterns and symbols from nature focusing on the idea of an ecological self. Art New England called work from her series Portrait of the Ecological Self, “Unforgettable.” Her work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, including Flowers Gallery in New York City and the CICA Museum in Korea . She has received national and international grants and awards, recently a Pollination Project Grant. Callas received her MFA from the New York Academy of Art and her BFA from Stamps School of Art at the University of Michigan. She is an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at Monmouth University.

Kimberly Callas