photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Ada Pilar Cruz / USA

“So it was magical arriving to an isolated and scenic landscape. There seemed no way out but with a car or a very long walk in the heat. It was hot.  The sunsets were spectacular, then there was the star studded sky and a perfect bench to lie down and stare upward.

When I am working in a new studio, particularly in a new place, while traveling, observing, learning, I draw from the experience.  Each place gives me an energy of new insights and I make work in relation to the place based on what I have found there, what I have seen and the pieces of its history that I can glean.  

My plan while at Joya: AiR was to make paper.  I had made paper out of seaweed that had washed onto the shore when I had been in a place by the ocean.   Now I was going to be in an arid environment and I wanted to gather dried fibrous plant material (I imagined cactus) to make a different kind of paper.   Interestingly, I did not find cactus-type plants.  Instead, I found pine, grass, herb, and thistle.  The amazing blaze of blooming poppies was out of the question.  I walked and gathered then I boiled the fiber for hours, and I pounded the material into…not quite pulp as I gave myself blisters in attempt.  I had brought dried abaca pulp that I re-hydrated, and mixed with the gathered and cooked materials.  In all I made 95 11”x18” sheets of paper.  I would screen the pulp and lay it out to dry in the heat of the day.  The papers would dry within an hour. 

These papers are beautiful.  

Now I have another idea”.

Ada Pilar Cruz

Ada is from New York with family from Puerto Rico. Her education and life have been in both places. She has an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art where she worked with ceramic sculpture and printmaking. She is one of the founders and a member of Buster Levi Gallery, in Cold Spring, NY - which is run by artists. She exhibits in this gallery every two years.
She is also a member of a non-profit print shop in El Barrio, NY, called Rafael Tufino Print Shop - part of Taller Boricua.
In her capacity as an artist, she is a Museum Educator having worked with MoMA for 25 years, and now she teaches as an educator with The Drawing Center in New York City.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / group residency / Manchester School of Art / Manchester Metropolitan University / ENG

Joya: AiR is once again delighted to host Manchester School of Art / Manchester Metropolitan University after a few years break (thanks to the pandemic). This time led by Dr Dave Griffiths (Senior Lecturer and Section Head, Art Postgraduate) and teaching assistant Anna Clough, as Brigitte Jurack (Reader and Head of Sculpture/Time Based Arts), who has traditionally brought student to us is exhibiting in HOME Manchester. Her exhibition ‘Fieldnotes’ and I quote…

A series of diaristic drawings of rocks with compressed fauna or marine life, and fungi, are shown together with photographs of collaborative happenings with Manchester School of Art students, on land that has been degraded through intensive monoculture and water shortage or excess. Whilst the drawings depict geological time, the photographs document moments of re-imagining, being in the land(scape). Produced in two vastly different European climates, Dovestones in Greater Manchester and one of the most arid, Joya: arte + ecología / AiR in southern Spain, they function as an homage to water, an increasingly scarce natural resource.

The students, as always, are eclectic and super enthusiastic investigating every mountain and valley experimenting with land based installation, moulding clay, weaving dry grass, experimenting with alternative photography techniques, embroidery, stone carving and much more.

It has been great to bring this collective force of nature into the natural habitat of the high sierras of Almería.

We look forward to next year…

And in their absence they have left their sound… Spotify Manchester School of Art at Joya: AiR 22 playlist

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Holly Friend / ENG

‘Joya: AiR was a far cry from my usual pace of life in Hackney, London, where I can typically be found rushing around, doing everything I can to push 'thinking' and 'writing' to the bottom of my priorities. In rural Spain, the only distractions available were petting Frida and going for long, meandering walks, giving me ample (physical, mental, emotional) space to both edit and solve the existential problems I was facing with my novel.

My favourite thing about Joya: AiR was the positive boredom it manifested. Suddenly, I found myself in a place where I could wake up late, procrastinate, read for hours in front of the fire, confront a posse of local barking dogs, chat and eat and laugh, all while claiming bursts of creativity as they arose throughout the day. There was no guilt attached to doing, or not doing. Then there's the erratic weather (rain, snow, sun) and the slow, convivial dinners, fuelled by wine and absorbing conversation with new friends that made my time at Joya: AiR impossible to forget’.

Holly Friend

Holly Friend is a trend forecaster and futurist whose work revolves around unearthing the weird and wonderful aspects of consumer behaviour. As the former deputy foresight editor at London-based strategic foresight consultancy The Future Laboratory, her work ranges from researching and writing about cultural trends conducting ethnographic consumer research.

As well as being quoted as a futures expert by the likes of The Guardian, The Times and Dazed, she's consulted on projects for some of the world’s leading brands, including Google, Reebok, Diageo and Spotify, presenting insight-packed keynotes for clients and events around the world.

Holly completed her debut novel, Veneers, in 2020; exploring the power structures of social media and how digital spaces are changing the narrative around consent. She's now working on her second novel.

www.hollyfriend.com

University of the Arts London / Art for the Environment Award recipient Daniel Ginsburg / residency report

photo Simon Beckmann

University of the Arts London / Art for the Environment Award / recipient Daniel Ginsburg

Residency report.

Joya: AiR report for AER 2022

Daniel Ginsburg

MA Photography

Graduated 01/22

London College of Communication

Residency dates: 15th – 28th of July

“Leaving for Joya: AiR was the first time I’d left the UK since the pandemic began. This was the year in which it seemed all British people got tired of staycations and clogged up airports and motorways trying to get out of the country. I had taken trains across Europe before, and so when AER and Joya: AiR suggested that they would prefer for me to arrive that way in order to keep my carbon footprint low, I leapt at the chance. I wanted to feel like I was truly traveling, to watch the countries pass me by and the world expand. After completing an MA course that was almost entirely online which found me developing a slow, urban, domestic practice, I was excited to see how it would begin to evolve once faced with the wider world – a nature reserve that felt like a frontier of climate change, a place where the death throes of the natural world could be felt – and fought – first hand.

I love long train journeys, and Europe’s network of incredibly efficient, interconnected, and cool trains blow the UK’s out of the park. I spent the best part of 3 days just travelling and watching the scenery fly by. It was the middle of summer, and so the heat was far too oppressive to really be outside in, so my impressions of my stopovers were brief or under cover of night.

I was the first artist of the season to arrive at Joya. I was immediately struck by the smart passive design of the building, after sitting in air-conditioned trains and sleeping in air-conditioned hostels for the last couple of days. The temperature was in the upper 30s, but the thick walls and the use of shutters kept the place cool and, when needed, breezy. It made me think about the smart ways we can live in harsh landscapes without requiring a large carbon footprint to provide us with comfort. The landscape could best be described as dry and spiky, but the sheer immensity of insect life meant that there was never any silence – just a constant pleasant buzzing, the rhythm of life.

My photographic practice utilises non-toxic materials, and so I began experimenting by making prints with caffenol solution, and keeping my water use to a minimum. This process is much slower and less predictable than when regular darkroom chemicals are used, but I vowed to stick by and master it despite its slowness often being frustrating and restricting. Still, it was better than having to walk around too much with my camera in the unforgiving heat.

Daniel Ginsburg

It was once the other artists began to trickle in that I realised how incredible an experience this would be. We could, and did, spend hours chatting and sharing influences under the milky way, shooting stars, and satellites.

The residency came at a frightening time for Europe. For 2 days while I was there, an unprecedented heatwave caused temperatures to soar back home in the UK and in parts of France to more dangerous levels than in my patch of Spanish desert. Crops and houses began to catch fire. In Spain, wildfires were spreading at higher rates than normal, and crops were failing. In creating work about the Anthropocene, it felt strange being in a safe oasis – though I knew my location was more precarious than it felt.

Daniel Ginsburg

As I’m prone to do, I looked to the future and at myth. At the new incredible images of deep space coming from the James Webb telescope that made the stars feel closer, stranger, and more interlinked to our survival as a species than ever. I looked at the chaos and burning our science had wrought on the Earth, like the direct result of what Prometheus started by stealing hungry fire from the gods. Like the result of a child pointing the magnifying glass of science into the reckless tinderbox of complex systems ecology. I created images by burning film negatives directly, using reflections and magnification and wasteful machines and camera lenses.

Daniel Ginsburg

But, I didn’t want to just burn things. It went against my practice’s commitment to wonder (over doomsaying), and so I hunted the shady pine forests for inspiration…

Daniel Ginsburg

  Out here in the wild I felt more alone than I’d ever felt – so far away from civilisation and so much in the uncaring  hands of nature. I’d see figures often, my brain expecting to see a person but instead it would be a tree, a rock.

Daniel Ginsburg

Daniel Ginsburg

Daniel Ginsburg (view to Joya: AiR)

The next pieces I made were an exploration of this animism my brain had begun ascribing to things just by virtue of being out in the wild. I played a kind of pareidolic Pokémon Go where I hunted down chimeric natural forms and captured them. I thought of them as kinds of trolls, which when caught in the knowing light of the sun are turned to stone. In some stories the sun is replaced with the blinding ‘truth’ of Christianity which is, to me, the peak of anthropocentrism. I was reminded of the Ursula le Guin short story The Author of the Acacia Seeds (2015), which I began to come back to again and again, about the future study of animal linguistics which alluded to a possible future study of phyto- and geo-linguistics. And so, each of my photographs were accompanied by a photogram made by the essence of the photograph’s subject, scattered randomly on the photographic paper as if in a form of divination to where it may be decoded, in several decades, centuries, or millennia, as language. A quotation from the subject.

Daniel Ginsburg / hand printed using caffenol

Daniel Ginsburg / hand printed using caffenol

I’d brought with me the book The Web Of Meaning by Jeremy Lent (2021) about integrating ancient and indigenous wisdom with contemporary science. My work has always leant a lot on abstract organic forms, and I’d been looking for more ways to hone in on the fractal structures. By placing leaves directly into the enlarger, I found that I could create images out of these.

This was a whole playground of fertile ground. Fractals make up everything in the natural world (the flow of energy of fluids, geology, stars,) but can also be used to understand politics, urban planning, the process of consciousness. I wanted to stress and explore this human connection to fractals and to see where it would lead. The pictures I created were fascinating and brimming with potential, made up of criss-crossing layers of familiar and unfamiliar forms and patterns. I knew that my time of freedom and experimentation had been fruitful, and that all of these ideas would continue swirling around in me once I had to return home.

title: anima 1 / Daniel Ginsberg

title: anima 2 / Daniel Ginsburg

That was where my Joya: AiR journey ended. Refreshed and with ideas and inspiration brimming within me, I found myself back at home. Though the location and beautiful natural landscape of Joya are undoubtably stunning, the things I’ll carry with me are the incredible connections I made there. Days of silence interspersed with incredible discussions. Fascinating people who had made their way here from all over the world for different reasons, with different disciplines. I’ll also miss the incredible food, the warmth and kindness of Simon and Donna, and the welcoming licks from Frida. I’d like to thank the AER team for gifting me the change to escape the pressure of making and to be able to slow down, breathe, and absorb inspiration from the environment, in what was truly an unforgettable experience.

Daniel Ginsburg / hand printed with caffenol

Daniel Ginsburg

References:

• Le Guin, Ursula K. (2015) ‘The Author of Acacia Seeds’, from The Real and the Unreal: Selected Stories from Ursula K. Le Guin, Volume 2, Gollancz: London

• Lent, J. (2021) The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, Profile Books: London.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Carrie Foulkes / GBR

‘In the arid landscapes of Sierra de María-Los Vélez I communed with olives, grapes and pomegranates as well as some tiny flowers with striking hues of purple and blue. Realising that I was craving physical work, I found purpose and pleasure in a morning routine caring for baby pistachio trees, carting wheelbarrows full of sawdust-light sheep poop to fertilise the tender saplings. Frida the hound and Fufu the goat were spirited companions.

Every evening I saw the waxing moon rise over the mountains and knew that it was dinner time. We gathered around the long table outside to share Donna's incredible meals, to drink wine and talk beneath the stars. It was a great joy to celebrate my birthday with new friends.

The rare space and time for contemplative and creative practice bore unexpected fruits. I think it may have been at one of our dinners that I was reminded of the saying: a wise person knows they'll never sit in the shadow of the tree they plant. This idea became an animating theme of my time at Joya, inspiring a performance called Tending, in which a solitary figure walks out into the desert with a watering can. There's some kind of hope in this action, this image.

Carrie Foulkes

Carrie Foulkes is an artist, writer, researcher and complementary therapist. Her studies in philosophy, bodywork and multidisciplinary arts inform her thinking and writing on subjects including illness, care, and the mind-body relationship. Carrie is a doctoral candidate in the DFA Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Zelda Solomon / ENG

‘The advice that was passed onto me about Joya: AiR was to not focus too much on planning something specific, but to respond once you’re there. I found that a daunting prospect because that meant I would have to relinquish a lot of control. I then wrestled with how I could even begin to bring my culturally specific practice to Velez Blanco and Joya: AiR in a way that didn’t read as ownership.

Genuinely listening and responding to the surroundings and my place within them proved to be the best route I could have taken in that respect. The landscape and its stories; Simon and Donna’s embedded practice; and the other artists I am so grateful to have met inspired me a great deal in ways I never could have anticipated. I’m glad I was present with it all, because the work I produced from that space of awareness was surprising and spilled out with ease. I often find myself circling the same familiar buoys in my writing and wider work, and Joya: AiR pushed me to welcome more in.

Much of Joyas magic is credit to Simon and Donna, who have facilitated such a rare creative environment without a trace of competition or judgment. And particular thanks to Sophie, Aga and Amber who made my time there so special. It’s an experience I’ll treasure for years to come’.

Zelda Solomon

Zelda completed her undergraduate degree in History of Art at Edinburgh University in 2021 and has recently completed an MA in Race, Media and Social Justice at Goldsmiths College, London. Her undergraduate dissertation focused on the Asian cyborg within the context of Anti-Asian hate crimes in response to coronavirus, and a condensed, fictionalised version of her research that utilised the screenplay-format was recently published by Peanut Press, Edinburgh, and can be found here :https://www.peanutpress.co.uk/product-page/taking-over-by-zelda-solomon.

She has been freelance writing non-fiction for a number of years now, and was previously the Culture and Politics editor for Woman to Woman and was previously a creative copywriter for Agora Digital -- a digital platform that profiles female and non-binary people working in Digital and New Media art. She is now editing for independent publisher 9vtbackslash5’s new queer poetry anthology. Additionally she was the BAMER Liberation officer for her student theatre and sat on the Deconolonising the Curriculum board for the Edinburgh College of Art.
While her interests lie primarily in anti-racism and writing, she has also worked with theatre, film and performance. During the pandemic, she created a short film with her co-producer Camilla Anvar for the RUMAH@Khai all-Asian showcase exploring Asian-ish identity, which can be found here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSyBCs1oLm0&t=12s. She also received funding from Edinburgh University to put on her own satirical exhibition with live performance art in 2020, and recently made a short film to support an essay for her masters which can be found here : https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/666002988.

Joya: playlist / Zelda Solomon

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Sophie Gibbings / USA

‘My background is in alternative process photography, and I have always made work about nature and the body and the parallels between the “two bodies” – nature’s body and the human body. I came to the UK from California, to do my Masters in Contemporary Photography at Central Saint Martins. I arrived at Joya: AiR in the summer between my first and second year of the course. Since arriving in London, I stopped making representational images and moved towards thinking about the phenomenology of being in nature. I am now more interested in making art WITH nature, instead of ABOUT nature. I use sustainable photographic materials as well as natural materials found in the landscape. When I arrived at Joya: AiR, I was in complete awe of the beauty that surrounds. Simon and Donna have a mission of bringing culture to nature. So much of my creative practice is centered around bringing people back to nature through art. My practice begins with a conversation with the materials before the collaboration can begin. I listen to the materials and ask permission with immense gratitude for their participation and offerings. While at Joya: AiR, I collaborated with the materials that surrounded, creating assemblages, Land Art installations, and performances all done outside, in the landscape. It was important for me to install my art outside to have a conversation about this return to nature through art. I am interested in applying the ideas of regenerative agriculture to talk about regenerative art. It is my hope that my art can create a pathway that leads the participant back to nature and that people will begin to care more about our Mother Earth through this meaningful exchange. Afterall, all our “bodies” come from nature and return to nature, we are all one. Reciprocity is key in the climate crisis, and this is my way of giving back to our beautiful Earth.

Sophie Gibbings

Sophie Gibbings was born in Santa Barbara, California (1994) where she spent the first 18 years of her life. She received her BFA in photography from Lesley University College of Art and Design in 2016 (Formally The Art Institute of Boston). Sophie is currently pursuing a Masters in Art in Contemporary Photography: Practices and Philosophy at Central Saint Martins (2023). She lives and works in London.

Most recently, she has exhibited her work at The Chainstore, London, UK, Grayspace Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA, The Mills Building, San Francisco, CA,  Harvey Milk Photo Center, San Francisco, CA, Omi Gallery-Impact Hub, Oakland, Carroll and Sons, Boston, MA, and The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO. Her most recent performance was titled Picture Gallery Helen Frankenthaler at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Charles Binns / ENG

"What are the memories I will treasure most of my time at Joya: AiR?  Bee-eaters feeding on unseen insects above Joya one afternoon, swooping over the house time and time again to catch their lunch.  Vultures performing a low level  fly past as we reached the top of the hill and walked towards the rocks where they roost. Walking along barrancos, sometimes the right barranco, sometimes the wrong barranco; wandering through pine forests looking for fossils.  Scrambling up to the ancient cave looking for prehistoric art and looking out over the landscape, the latest of a long line of visitors stretching back thousands of years.  Sunsets and moonrises, watching satellites and shooting stars, listening to the music of the night.

Two weeks at Joya: AiR was a chance to stop, connect with nature and photograph the landscapes, a chance to read and plan future trips.  A chance to relax and eat delicious food and sometimes do nothing at all. “

Charles Binns

Charles Binns is a photographer and artist based in the UK working with, amongst other things, photography, sculpture and printmaking. Landscape photography is a central core of his process and he produces images with alternative processes such as Kallitypes.

Education: 2018 to 2020 MA Contemporary Photography at Central St Martins, London.
Exhibitions:
2022
Patterns of Enquiry Espacio Gallery, London
2021
Last Chance Saloon (Reprise) Slash Arts, London
Last Chance Saloon Terre Verte, Launceston
The Things We Leave Behind TOD Gallery, Sevenoaks
Finally Ugly Duck Gallery, London.
Brave New World No Space Collective (online)
V1 Exhibition Flux Review (online)
Abstract Muse In
Togetherness Of Diversity Musebuz. (online)
2020
New Futures Digital The Art Vault, Kovet.Art (online)
My House is an Island Arthousehaus, London.
London Grads Now Saatchi Gallery, London.
3 Humans. Tension Fine Art Gallery, London.
2019
CSM Tate Exchange. Tate Modern, London.
The Fragile Ocean. Lumen Crypt Gallery, London.

FEATURES
2021
The Working Artist February Issue
Artists Responding To… Issue No. 6.
2020
Tien Shan Mountains C41 Magazine 21 April
Turnford Brook Square Magazine Summer Edition.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Josie Beardsmore / ENG

‘My experience at Joya: AiR was really magical and came at the perfect time when I needed to reassess my practice after studying. During the residency I learnt far more than I could have imagined, from myself but also the other resident artists. Having the time and space to concentrate purely on my practice has been invaluable. The work and research I undertook during my time has since taken my practice in a really productive direction. I spent my time harvesting clay from around Sierra María - Los Vélez national park. Through a method of clay extraction that uses water to separate and filter the clay particles, I was able to create mouldable clay. This was then made into forms, the shape of which were dictated by the properties of the clay. When they dried, these forms tuned the same bright white as the hills they came from. This method is currently informing an ongoing research project around my hometown.

Josie Beardsmore

Born in Kidderminster, Josie Beardsmore lives and works in London. She is a recent graduate from MA Research Architecture at Goldsmiths and also has a degree in Design. Because of these influences, her creative practice is heavily informed by research. The materials she uses are dictated by the project itself, with her work spanning many disciplines such as ceramics, textiles and book making. She is currently working on a project investigating identity and researching through clay.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Aisling Keavey / IRE

"Stillness. Silence. Expanse. Isolation.

The only sound is crickets chirping at night and the birds announcing the sunrise.

Cracked earth. Lines. Shapes. Shadows.

The thunderstorm; watching the lightning strike the mountains in the distance and hearing the thunder rolling in, watching the sunset over the mountains with the other residents and Frida. Space to think, create and research. Space to walk, and take in the remoteness of the place.

Coming into Joya: AiR, I had a lot of plans to tie up some loose strands of research and practice, but I found my days preoccupied with other things, spending my time sitting outside under the olive tree, or in the studio writing or reading. While at Joya: AiR, I had the space and time to concentrate on projects that I had been putting on the back-burner: namely scanning and sorting through slide negatives of photojournalism images of the museum collection from the Topkapi museum in Istanbul. My time at Joya: AiR has completely reinvigorated my practice and I feel so indebted to the place and to Simon and Donna for this experience."

Aisling Keavey

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Tash Kahn / ENG

‘I like punctuation and I was looking forward to Joya: AiR being a sort of comma in my life, a pause in which to collect my thoughts and just be. And it was that and more. It was a place of total stillness and humbling landscape. A place of early-morning walks to ruined houses and coffee brewed to the sound of birds echoing down the kitchen chimney. A place of interesting conversations over delicious meals, and of many new friends.

I arrived without a plan and it took a while to settle into the new routine. My usual habit of ‘doing a Rauschenberg’ and walking around picking up other people’s rubbish was frustrated by the remote location and lack of colourful litter. Instead I collected rusty tin cans and old bits of wood, hauling them back to my studio for a series of ephemeral sculptures. I also took many Polaroids and failed at a big painting, but it didn’t matter. As the days went on all pressure disappeared and I relaxed into the ebb and flow of the new routine.

The total isolation was challenging at times, but it afforded a space to notice the little things – trails of busy ants creating lines through the dust, the ever-changing sky, and the light on the spinning wind turbine. The constantly-shifting dynamic as people came and went led to many wonderful connections and new collaborations. Thank you Donna and Simon for a wonderful experience.

Tash Kahn

Tash Kahn studied a BA in Fine Art at University of East London. She works with many mediums, constantly recycling and remaking, taking other people’s rubbish and making it her own. Kahn has exhibited both nationally and internationally, with a recent project at the Stone Space Gallery in east London that saw her collaborate with Alice Wilson for Talking Heads – an exhibition of artistic responses. Exhibitions include: Picture Palace (2020) Transition Gallery, London; Talking Heads (2019) The Stone Space, London; 2019 Sluice refresh, M100, Odense; Backyard Sculpture (2019) Domobaal, London; Modern Finance (2019) Thamesside Gallery, London; Citizen (2018) Swiss Cottage Gallery, London; The Mechanical Reproduction of Dust (2018) Stand4 Gallery, New York. In 2014, she co-founded the visual-arts project DOLPH, and has helped facilitate 22 exhibitions, making partnerships with two London schools, as well as universities including UAL Wimbledon and The Royal College of Art, and numerous artists in the UK, New York and Berlin. DOLPH provides an alternative way for the community to engage with art, as well as being an invaluable learning resource. She is also an editor for Penguin and Sluice Magazine, and has given many lectures both at home and abroad.

Joya: playlist / Tash Kahn

photo Simon Beckmann (with Frida the Joya: AiR Schnauzer)

Joya: AiR / Chiara Leto / ITA

“During my stay at Joya: AiR I decided I wanted to spend a fortnight away from civilisation and from all those distractions that can interfere with one's thoughts. This to me felt like a real privilege.

Throughout this time my intention was to keep an open attitude, refraining from approaching my work with a preconceived goal in mind. For logistical reasons but also to allow myself to think differently about my practice, I arrived with very little material and equipment. This forced me to move differently. I would usually forage from the landscape to create colours and dyes, but this time, influenced by the landscape, I was drawn towards the use of pigments from the earth and the nearby dried-out river bed along which I walked for hours.

It was the landscape to dictate my steps. 

I left Joya: AiR with very fond memories of all the people I was so lucky to encounter and a collection of pigments which I soon intend to use in a painting which will capture the essence of this magical part of the world”.

Chiara Leto

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Dianna Frid / USA

“While at Joya: AiR, I was able to merely begin to sort through dozens of photographs that I took while doing research at the Burgoa Library in Oaxaca, Mexico. As simple as this sounds, it is a daunting prospect for someone like me, who typically works hands-on-matter. With respect to the latter, I was happy to walk many miles around the Sierra Maria - Los Vélez where Joya: AiR is situated. In doing so, the matter of landscape—and the substances and lifeforms with which it is teeming—offered time to think about and sense the potentials of mud, clay, and time. I spent long moments observing ants of different clans moving relative mountains, sorting through leaves and dead matter, and getting on with collaborative life force. I noticed micro-climates as one ascends mountains and hills (of which there are many). There were smells and sounds new to me. Most of all the silence, the stars one moon-less night, and the bees. I came with a suitcase, a pencil, and a sketchbook. And left with less than what I brought. This was part of the experiment”.

Dianna Frid

Dianna Frid studied in the US at Hampshire College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Last summer she became full Professor in the Art Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she has been tenured since 2013. Early in her career she received several Canada Council for the Arts Awards (2000, 2008, 2009, 2012). She has lived in Chicago since 1999 and has been awarded grants from the Illinois Arts Council (2003, 2014), Artadia (2004) and 3Arts (2018). 

Most recently, she has exhibited her work at the DePaul Art Museum and the National Museum of Mexican Art (both in Chicago). She is currently preparing for a one-person artist’s book exhibit at the Alan Koppel Gallery (Chicago) and an artist-poet reading with Victoria Chang for the Dia Foundation in New York.

“A note on this playlist: “Tunes from Obituaries” is a cumulative playlist not based on predilections. Instead, it is comprised of musicians, composers, conductors, and producers whose obituaries I have come across in the New York Times. There are the household names, but this collection of tunes goes beyond that, and it is connected to my ongoing project “Words from Obituaries” (2010 – present)”.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Mirjam Debets / NED

‘In my work I try to playfully bridge the gap between urban life and nature. As I spend most of my time living and working in Amsterdam, it has been a very refreshing experience to reflect on this theme while being submerged in an environment that’s everything but urban.

With the help of Simon and Donna’s stories about the house and its surroundings and through the daily expeditions into the sierra, I felt like I really got to know the landscape. This, and how easy it felt to connect with the other artists makes it almost difficult to believe I only spent two weeks at Joya.

I had time to catch up with my inspiration, big and small: I actually had the time to get through a biological/philosophical theory I’ve been wanting to read -which turned out to be surprisingly relevant to the way I have been ‘generating’ ideas-, I studied the shapes and geometry of the plants below my feet and for the first time tried to catch my ideas in writing rather than images.

To share my experience with others I’m creating a small zine with the images and ideas I have been collecting during my time at Joya. Hopefully this way I will be able to hold on to the experience a little longer while diving back into my life in Amsterdam’.

Mirjam Debets

Mirjam Debets is an animation director, illustrator and VJ. Fueled by a curiosity about nature and stories about who we are as humans, she creates inviting and eclectic worlds and encourages you to explore them with an open mind. Her work stretches over a wide range of media including visuals for live events, installations, short films, illustrations and textile design.

In 2022 she co-directed the short animated documentary ‘Diafonie’, which will premiere at the Netherlands Film Festival in september. Her work was seen at Dutch Design Week, Museumnacht Amsterdam and KLIK Amsterdam Animation Festival. She is part of Amsterdam based DJ collective Sentinel Island Disco as a visual artist and VJ. She created textile designs for the first collection of LA based luxury apparel brand LEJ.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Màrius Sala / ESP

Joya: AiR ha representado un antes y un después para mi momento vital. En un entorno privilegiado, en dónde se mezcla el paisaje, el ambiente de trabajo junto a otros colegas y el mimo que Donna y Simon ponen a cada detalle hace que sea un lugar de renovación interior y artística. Las horas de trabajo creativo han pasado volando y el tiempo de mi estancia me ha parecido fugaz pero me voy con la satisfacción de haber encontrado un camino de inspiración con el que voy a trabajar los próximos meses y haber tenido el privilegio de conocer y formar parte de la comunidad Joya AIR. Gracias por todo! Siempre os tendré presentes.

Màrius Sala es Director de Arte, creativo y pintor además de combinarlo con la docencia en diversas escuelas de Diseño y Artes visuales de Barcelona.

Joya: AiR / Marius Sala / ESP

Joya Air has represented a before and after for my vital moment. In a privileged environment, where the landscape mixes, the work environment with other colleagues and the care that Donna and Simon put into every detail makes it a place of interior and artistic renewal. The hours of creative work have flown by and the time of my stay has seemed fleeting to me, but I am leaving with the satisfaction of having found a path of inspiration with which I am going to work in the coming months and having had the privilege of knowing and being part of of the Joya AIR community. Thanks for everything! I will always keep you in mind.

Màrius Sala is Art Director, creative and painter in addition to combining it with teaching in various schools of Design and Visual Arts in Barcelona.

Joya: playlist / Marius Sala

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Sarah Wishart / GBR

“I didn’t really know what to expect from my fortnight at Joya AIR, as I’d never been able to devote any time to a residency before. The demands of full-time work and a part-time PhD plus a range of collaborative projects hadn’t left much time for that sort of focus.

I had deliberately avoided setting ambitious targets. Instead, I wanted to simply allow myself to spend time with my writing project – and the only target I set myself was that by the time I came home, I would have developed my writing processes and practice in some significant way.

This writing project I proposed focussing on first exploded into existence around three years ago now, just before I applied to Joya AIR in 2019. The project, like my 2020 residency, had been delayed by the chaos of the last two years, so it has been long awaited.

It has been a beautifully gentle fortnight, waking early I’d walk or hike or go for runs before the sun was at its fiercest, and then I’d amble up to my sunny writing studio above Donna and Simon’s kitchen, with its view of the hills, the wind turbine and an olive tree buzzing with wasps all day. Despite my terror of wasps, I grew used to enjoying watching them at work in the tree, with my windows open and mosquito nets keeping the terror at bay. I’d work on one or other aspect of my plans and then lunch and siesta and then usually buzz through some writing at the end of the day. I’ve never been able to do academic writing at the end of a day so this was a revelation. All the artists who were able would then gather to watch the sun go down every night, and we’d eat delicious meals together, talking of how our days had gone, our artistic practices and lives while watching satellites spin around far above us under the Milky Way.

I made many discoveries about my writing practice over the last two weeks and I’m glad I didn’t set myself a big number of words to have pursued, and most likely fail at achieving it. Instead, my hopes to create a space to sit with ideas and how I could take what I’d learn and apply it to a normal week at home, turned out to be achievable. But more than that – to be pleasurable. I also created space to read similar sorts of books to the one I’m working on and for the time to listen and read up on writers who’ve explored the craft of writing –like Alan Moore, Stephen King, Ursula K Le Guin and Vivian Gornick.

By the end of my two weeks – I’d read a book a day and finished my masterclass with Mr Moore. I’d also surprised myself by the clarity and speed of the decision to remove 15k words from the project and to go in a completely different direction. I set myself a target of 1000 words a day when a day was a writing day and completed 10k words by the end of my time.

I discovered (as I’d hoped and suspected) that the project was sound, is sound. But beyond this – the conversations and connections I formed in this time were as tender and special as the time I had to look at the way I worked. Simon and Donna and their fantastic incredible spaces enable us to create rich temporary communities. Joya AIR was worth the wait, and was an incredible experience, and I hope the small community I was part of during this time is not that temporary”.

Sarah Wishart

Sarah is a writer, researcher and artist with a Phd in how the documentation of live art might include the memories of audiences. She’s currently working in film, text, voice, textiles and collaborative practice. She also works as Creative Director for a human rights journalism/communications charity - Each Other and opened their Scottish office in Glasgow in July 2021.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Helmi Liikanen / FIN

“Seven A2 arcs of “better paper”, some pencils and sketch books. A packet of dry pastels which I had hand-picked in Helsinki trying to imagine how the colours of mid-July Spanish mountains would be like. I arrived to Joya: AiR with minimum tools that would allow me to shift into the mood of creative exploration and curiosity.

Joya: AiR has an honest beauty to its architecture, it is a space adapted to the climate and the history of the location. Maybe this made it easier to step into a dream of truthfully following one’s intuition in the daily work and enjoyment. After the day’s work everyone gathered to share thoughts over the dinner. The people I met and the moments spent together under the scorching sun and the stars ended up forming a big part of my experience.

During my stay I gained some clarity and trust in my creative vision. I regard the body as a thinking entity and the act of making as thinking. This has a lot to do with my background in hand-crafting (and in my love of Juhani Pallasmaa’s books). Sensing my environment and releasing my thoughts and observations in tactile and visual ways is in the core of my practice - be it designing fabrics or drawing or collaging.

The shapes that I “carved” on the paper while in Joya: AiR ended up resembling the mountains, the sun and the moon. The elements connecting to each other in a continuous dance of night and day.

I thank Donna and Simon and each and every one I met during my stay. You made it unforgettable.

-Helmi

Helmi Liikanen is a textile designer and artist living in Helsinki, Finland. In 2019 she graduated with MA degree in Textile design from Aalto University School of Art Design and Architecture. Her designs have been frequently featured in collections of Finnish weaving mill Lapuan Kankurit. Currently she works as a Technical designer at the lifestyle brand and printing house Marimekko, which she combines with her artistic activities.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Kit Ondaatje Rolls / ENG

‘Before I came I was so excited to have a month dedicated solely to creating, but my experience was so much richer than just that. The environment was profoundly nurturing. By this I mean the land, the people, Joya: AiR as a home, the food, the space, the freedom, Frida and Fou Fou, and the beds(!!)... I saw many artists come and go, and it was a pleasure to observe just how much impact every single artist had on the group dynamic. The cross-pollination of ideas, thoughts, references, and sometimes wonderful nonsense was fantastic and much needed :)

The month was ‘productive’ but not in the way I was expecting. As proposed, I danced, sung, hiked, climbed, and created peculiar creatures. Surprisingly, I only had two days of ‘existential bleugh’ where I questioned my artistic capabilities and concluded that I best resign forever. Until the evening’s festivities begin again and perspective is gained, quite literally — how can you not be humbled when watching a full moon rise over the magnificent south-easterly mountain in wonderful company. What a month. What a residency. Thank you’!!

Kit Ondaatje Rolls

Kit Ondaatje Rolls is an interdisciplinary creative, working at the intersection of ecology, the performative arts and culture. Ondaatje Rolls graduated with a BA in Environmental Sociology & Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh in 2019 and received her MA in Biodesign from Central Saint Martins last July. During the Master’s, her project ‘Blimey!’ won the MA Biodesign, Maison/0, LVMH Collaboration 'One Nature, One Future' and was exhibited at the IUCN Congress 2021 in Marseille, France. She was recently selected to curate the creative segment of SHE Changes Climate’s inaugural event at COP26, championing artists who celebrate the feminine, the diverse, the resilient, and the collaborative. Ondaatje Rolls was a COP26 panelist, speaking alongside CONFENIAE representative Verónica Inmunda and 70s rockstar Brian Eno and is working on her second book that she intends to take to COP27.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Elisabetta Giromini / ITA

‘One of the hits of my stay at Joya: AiR has been the night thunderstorm. From my window I could see the lightning chasing each other and hear the thunder roaring in warning. The rain was pouring down and the wind whistled. I had left both windows open and I too was part of that storm albeit lying comfortably in my bed. This is the feeling that the two weeks in Joya: AiR have left me. Although I was in the middle of a storm in my personal life and in my imagination, I was in a safe place from which to observe what was happening around and inside me. Joya: AiR is a place of silence and void where you can find your own space for creation. The colours, the scents, the sounds, everything allows you to focus on yourself and your work while immersed in a delicate but stinging desert landscape. Simon and Donna favour this process in an extremely natural way, their presence is never intrusive. Watching the sunset in the evening with the other artists and the dog Frida, having dinner together and chatting made the experience even more enjoyable’!

Elisabetta Giromini

Elisabetta Giromini was born and lives in Milan. She graduated in Political Science in Rome and her studies in Vilnius and internships in the villas of Buenos Aires date back to that period. She continued her studies in International Relations in Brussels, graduating with a thesis on the health policies of the Central African Republic that led her to travel with a female doctor. Among the experiences in over sixty countries, the most significant routes by land: from Ushuaia to the Amazon River; Trans-Mongolian from St. Petersburg to Beijing; Iran from Tehran to the island of Hormuz.

Her main profession is writing and managing international research projects as a freelance. In 2020 she created the blog in-giro.com to tell stories of people and places. Her guide on Iran is forthcoming. Hybrid is her second novel.
"I recognize myself in nomadic thinking, in not being able to take root physically as well as mentally and emotionally in a specific place. I am fascinated by the identities that spread horizontally between multiple places like some mountain willows that do not grow in height, but on the surface of the rocks, expanding. So I imagine my growth, and the growth of my characters".

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / fuchsia / FRA

“The 5 weeks spent at Joya: AiR were really quite inspiring. Connecting with people from all over the world, from all walks of life was an incredibly enriching experience. Having a studio to immerse myself in my project, sheltered from the chaos of life in Paris and constantly surrounded by a stunning landscape was really what I needed. I am grateful for the few weeks spent at Joya: AiR, the rich encounters, and the beautiful memories this place has gifted me with”.

fuchsia