photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AIR / Faiza Hasan / PAK - ENG

“Joya: AiR came to me at a time when I was feeling creatively stifled, when I needed the time and space to recharge and recuperate. Within a few hours of showing up, the dry, sparse almost lunar landscape, the intense heat, the rows of almond trees, the scent of wild mountain rosemary and thyme, all cupped within the towering mountains, made something relax inside me. I’d start the days with a trek in the mountains and valleys, when the sun had barely crested the horizon, through forests silent but for the chirrups of birds or a scurrying rabbit and was rewarded one day when a herd of Ibex, as startled by me as I was by them, thundered right past me.

My days were spent writing, the whup, whup of the wind turbine and the buzz of bees a comfort in the background, with siestas in the afternoons as the temperature soared. I’d bump into fellow artists in the kitchen over lunch and chat about what we’d worked on or complain about the lack of inspiration as Frida the dog padded up for cuddles. Evenings we gathered to watch the sun set behind the mountains, then tucked into one of Donna’s soul satisfying meals and talked late into the night about life, art and oddly enough - Jung. At night I’d go to sleep looking out of my window at a dome of glittering, star studded skies, one of the clearest I have ever seen.

My three weeks at Joya: AiR will stay with me for a long time. Not only did I manage to make great progress with my work, but I also met many fantastic artists, made many friends and felt that creative spark come back to life.

Faiza Hasan

Faiza Hasan has worked as a journalist for publications in the US and Pakistan, and has an MA in Journalism from Stanford University, an MA in Creative Writing from Cambridge University, and has been a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, as well as the San Miguel Writers’ Conference. She also trained as a chef at Le Cordon Bleu and ran a pop up restaurant in London, then a bistro in Windsor and an online macaroon store, which she had to shut down due to a chronic pain condition, Fibromyalgia. She writes short stories and has just finished writing her first novel, The Ties that Bind Us.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Abbie Stellar / USA

“Just a few days into my residency at Joya: AiR, I suddenly felt the expansive yet short timeframe of two weeks. In the best possible way this situation of facing time, with so much room to observe, make, and rest was what I hoped would revive me and my excitement towards making work. Time felt like the wind, or like the traveling of sound. Sometimes it was a whisper echoing with the sound of the dry, crispy grass. Other times it was strong and gusty, reverberating through the valley with gusto. While at JOYA, I took time for myself and thought about my art practice, allowing the wind to take me where it would. I reconnected with my work with determination, joy, and ideas. I made new connections with an unfamiliar landscape and with people living (both permanently and temporarily) in that space. I found familiarity and embraces as I ventured into an unknown timeframe. This not knowing allowed me to explore and be curious about forms I’ve encountered both in nature and in domestic space considering their relativity to one’s own memories, while further investigating markings of time through my artistic practice. By the end of my residency I felt better acquainted with time in a way I hadn’t felt in awhile. A sense of knowing there is time, yet making the most of it when it's present; not feeling the need to constantly go unless that’s what feels right. Kind of a lot like the wind”.

Abbie Stellar


Abbie Stellar is an artist currently based in Austin, TX. Working primarily in sculpture, her work engages with ideas of the familiar, memory, material culture, and markings of time. Through malleable mediums and process-based work, she gives shape and form to impermanent aspects of the human experience. She received her BA in Art from the University of Southern California in 2018. She’s had solo and group shows in both Fort Worth, TX and Los Angeles, CA, and taught art in various capacities through arts organizations, museums, and the Montessori school system.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Alice Gompels / GBR

“It is a rare opportunity to stay in one place for two weeks: no comings and goings, no visitors, no shopping to collect or work to go to. A pleasure to find yourself on acres of land intersected by only small tracks, seven artists, and a large, empty, gorge. Juxtaposing the sparse landscape, however, is the abundance of what Donna and Simon have created, which presents as a large Farmhouse, surrounded by fruit trees and made up of light bedrooms and beautiful studios. In reality, there is even more than initially meets the eye.

For me, the set-up at Joya: AiR facilitated a perfect balance between private work and time to be with and learn from some incredible artists. In the studio, I was working on moving between printmaking and painting, to see how my process of image-making can become more fluid, through images based in magical realism and Andalucía.

Thank you to Simon and Donna for being great company and creating a space with such a vision. I am deeply grateful to my fellow artists who also revealed how nourishing it can be to live in an artistic community.

Alice Gompels

Alice’s work is about quiet moments, the times in silence that allow your brain to drift, and the places this can lead. Undertaking an art foundation at Kingston University in 2017, Alice went on to study Illustration (BA) at the University of Brighton, where she was awarded the chance to study at MCAD (Minneapolis) for four months. During the rest of her university career, she had several residencies across Europe, working on socially engaged projects in Rotterdam, Skopje and Bruges. Alice takes great pleasure in expanding her practice through study. After graduating in 2020, Alice worked on painting commissions and saved money to move abroad for further study. Arriving in Florence in 2021, she studied a six-month intensive technical drawing course. In September 2022, she received a grant to attend a specialisation course at Il Bisonte, a printmaking school in San Nicolò, where she continues to enjoy producing work today.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Katherine Leedale / GBR

“Joya was a cocoon and a loaf of good bread, sheltering and nourishing in equal measure.

I took with me ideas that quickly became redundant, so formative is this place. Rather than write about sailors and monsters, I found the heat, the cracked land, the thirst (of various kinds), the conversations with other artists, the expanse of time, the cool interiors and the strong sense of being held in suspension all insisted their way into my words.

While in residence I sliced up airport magazines to form cut-up poems (like a ransom note? asked another artist), using them to think through my nascent process and finding them a useful tool to tap into unconscious seams of interest as well as reflect and challenge patterns of word use. The colour palette of the surroundings and house and the rhythms of each day made themselves known, joining a palette of perennial interests. Certain textures, objects and the rise and fall of the sun repeatedly appeared in these works - china, for example, or gold.

The thinking space afforded by Donna and Simon's care meant I was able to tackle new technical challenges in my pen-to-paper writing, setting about capturing the movement of leaves and flies within set rhyme schemes, or exploring a mythic love in sonnet form, or a classical Greek ode to a much-longed-for ice-cold full-fat Coke. Finding support and encouragement from fellow residents meant I swallowed my nerves and actually memorised spoken word pieces before performing and filming in the land itself. I left poems on paper under rocks and in holes.

Each evening a handful of haiku made a diary of the day. This short form, existing so ephemerally, was perfect to capture the experience as it happened.

Now I am back in the UK I am shaping all these pieces into an interconnected set of three pamphlets. It feels good to have a concrete outcome but I would have been as delighted by the strides my writing practice took at Joya and the clarity of vision that the fortnight gave me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Katherine Leedale

Katherine Leedale studied English Literature with papers in Italian literature and culture at the University of Cambridge, and photography at the University of the Arts London. After graduating from the latter in 2010 she spent twelve years combining work as a portrait, theatre and dance photographer with her own arts practice and commissions as a visual arts workshop facilitator.

Exhibitions, readings and performances include The Vagina Festival; exhibitor at the PageMasters Zine Fair at South London Gallery; several iterations of The Icing Room including performed reading and installation of the manifesto Against Bathing at ‘I’m in the Bath, Where Are You?’; inclusion in ‘To Make Radical Poetry from Home’ publication, Athens Zine Bibliotheque; inclusion in the Inland Project at the Poetry Cafe; writing included in UWE Centre for Fine Print Research Book Arts Newsletter; published work as part of the Bloomsbury Festival; solo exhibition at VAULT festival; group exhibition at Photofusion Gallery; solo exhibition at the Yard Theatre.

She is the founder and curator of the micro-gallery and library gallery neuf neuf, an itinerant and occasionally activated space for small works of all disciplines.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / University of the Arts ‘Art for the Environment Residency’ selected artist Nicholas Holt / GBR

awake at the sun's first glow • italian-style percolator coffee • bristly flora • dog bark valley echoes • heightened senses • words read aloud under the olive tree • beer in green cans • whirr of the wind turbine • darkroom experiments • corks on cactus • moments of unknowing • second breakfast • boundaries blurring • siestas • connections and conversations • pool-time • no map no compass • rioja • welcome silence • hands in the dirt • shared sunsets • goat bell ritual • shakshuka • shifts in perception • butterflies in the barranco • joya magic

Nicholas Holt

The Art for the Environment Residency Programme (AER) provides UAL graduates with the opportunity to apply for a 2 to 4 week fully funded residency at one of our internationally renowned host institutions, to explore concerns that define the 21st century – biodiversity, environmental sustainability, social economy and human rights.

Founded in 2015, internationally acclaimed artist Professor Lucy Orta, UAL Chair of Art for the Environment Centre for Sustainable Fashion launched the programme in partnership with international residency programmes such as Joya: arte + ecología / AiR and UAL Post-Grad Community

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Kevin Bellò

“Early July, my mind was suddenly delivered to Joya: Air, and once unboxed from its fervent thoughts and 'Fragile' tape, I continued my trip on foot in the ecosystem. Solid upon the pedestal of its neck, my head was focused on observing and collecting the landscape, combining details to construct a ghostly point of view. An idea like a wind took me by surprise, and my soul rolled down from its plinth to join the hidden community of the desert. Tools down and hands up. Quiet like a warrior giving up on murder, I await the land for the first move of their new chosen play. This time, it was as if the quality of my posture, the tempo of my breath, and the vibration of my feelings somehow slowly nullified the innate prejudice the insects had towards me. Passing ants, bees, beetles, and flies approached me with curiosity. Noticing that all the branches pointed in every direction, I accepted my bewilderment. In the nights and days in Joya: Air, I dreamt my life this way.

In the end, I left the box of my head there to be eroded by the salty wind as I resumed my pathway. I will do it backwards this time: rewinding the obscure journey of everything I ever felt missing.

Kevin Bellò

Based between Porto, London and Milan, Kevin Bellò is a curator and researcher in the arts, food and ecology. He graduated with an MA in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art in 2021, and he is a curator for the ecological art collective Sympoietic Society and contributor to The Gramounce’s new Food and Art Alternative MA. Upcoming projects include curatorial work for the permaculture farm and art residency hub Quinta das Relvas (PT), as well as residencies in the UNESCO Biosphere Großes Walsertal (AT), Institute for Postnatural Studies (ES), La Foresta (IT), Matadero Madrid: Centre for Contemporary Creation (ES).

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Rosie Fea / NZL

“It was interesting in 2020 hearing many people furtively share how replenished they felt after initial lockdown phases. The novel sense of disengagement bringing about a total connectivity we weren’t previously aware of.. How many discovered new creative talents, or finally started projects that had been staring them down for years. As much as we convince ourselves we are modern and resilient humans, there’s always a pull for a way of life that is less speedy and complicated. To experience intimate community involvement, and greater intent behind our daily happenings and interactions. Reaching less for exterior or superficial forms of grandeur, and more for an internalised, stabilising one. 

Being at Joya: AiR really confirmed this for me. And also confirmed how much my practice as a writer really does require sequestered time to percolate and organise my thoughts and ideas. ‘A room of one’s own’ as Virginia Woolf put it.

Prior to my stay I had recently quit a corporate job in favour of reclaiming the storyteller in me: setting off travelling with a nebulous plan and undecided end date. Simon and Donna’s place became the setting for my career cross-roads, allowing generous time to put pen to paper again, and become reacquainted with the notion of words being my greatest friend. And also a time of making such incredible new human-form ones too!!

I had originally pitched to work on a more structured, research-based, (less personal) writing project during my residency period... But, like many who have come and gone seem to say, the land, the people, the sense of other-worldliness, seemed to take precedence. As a writer, my craft / practice doesn’t always amalgamate much of a “body of work” by way of pictorial or tangible output, but experiences like this are what provide the absolutely invaluable philosophical fuel and practice hours that go behind the sentences and concepts that leak out onto a page after-the-fact. My future work will forever be richer because of it…

Reading my journal pages while sat at the airport on the day of leaving I really grasped how in that space, with such quiet and no distraction or stimulation from anything societal, how much you catch every single thought and feel every single feeling so clearly. Potent and ongoing, through the motions as they arrive, present, then settle / flee. Perhaps they are always there, and always this rolling and deep, we just don’t allow the complete removal from the din that drowns them out. As a writer, this is the gold dust I need more of: to hear my own voice, so I can offer something to the common one”.

Rosie Fea

Rosie Fea is a writer, anthropologist, content creator, producer who has forged a career while living peripatetically, travelling various countries in bursts seeing what narrative opportunity awaits. Since finishing study towards a Bachelor of Design in 2016, she has established a freelance-based body of work allowing her ideas to be showcased through various forms - photography, communication, and the written word. Specialist areas include long-form and short-form editorial writing, production and collaboration, and creative content production.

In November of 2021 she had her first book published. The pages are a collection of fragments privately penned across four years of itinerant living and eventually assembled into a series of prose and poetry about clinging to the ephemeral - a venture into things that no longer or do not yet exist.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Danielle Petti / CAN

“The silence, save for the breeze and birds. The undistracted noticing of the surroundings, up in the night sky and down at my feet. The intimate knowledge and care of the land from my hosts. These were three great takeaways from my stay at Joya. I came to Joya with the intent to play, experiment, observe, and forage.  I came with just a paintbrush and a few earths from my other travels and so the scale of my work surprised me. I allowed my work to take up space. Forced to be as resourceful as I could, I found earth and rock to move, clay to paint with, and wood to paint on. I created in the sun and for the sun. I created with the elements and then returned the work to the elements. I left content with the amount of play and deep thought, and with exchanges with artists and writers I’m lucky to have met”. 

Danielle Petti

Danielle Petti has a BFA from Toronto University and I will begin her MFA this coming September 2023. She has worked as a freelance photographer for 10 years but after living abroad in Italy, she found a narrower focus and direction for her artwork. She forages for rocks in nature, grinds them down into a paint, and often uses handmade papers to depict concepts inspired by motherhood, human origins, and sustainability. Her work falls within categories of environmental and conceptual art, with some figurative pieces as well. The process of making paint from found materials is hugely important to the overall meaning of her pieces as they draw attention to the materiality of the paint and to how the earthen materials are interconnected to all bodies.

photo and artwork Danielle Petti

photo Danielle Petti

photo Danielle Petti

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Kay Walsh / NZL

Sounds and sights remain with me on return to London after a week long residency at Joya: AiR

leaking light from the outside in
harsh bright white light dazzling the eye
The thwack thwack sound of the wind turbine
The view through the mesh from my upstairs window The goat bell ringing calling us all to dinner

This landscape pulls you in, holds and envelops, it is a landscape that seems to reveal all but it is the hidden narratives that lie within this place that intrigue. Evidence of seasons, past events, of the power of what nature can do with deep scared channels in the barranco that embody you as you walk its path.

The muted pallet of pinks, whites, ochre and peppered green become the focus.
Finding my feet adjusting to the light and heat meant a circadian shift, up early to catch the light and beat the heat.
It felt important to sink in and be still.

Initially staying close to the house recording the sounds and images that emerged at different times of the day evolved into walking and neural mapping of the surrounding landscape paying attention to the non human, the plants, rocks and terrain. This was an unfamiliar landscape to find a way in.
On day 4 I needed to elevate my view, to step away so I climbed one of the near by hills to get some perspective on my response to this ‘place’.
From above I could see the scale of the art+ecology project Simon and Donna had been working on for the past 15 or so years. Their sheer determination, passion and ambition to create something unique was evident in the land with its contours and plains visible from above.

Thank you for reminding me that our relationship to our environment needs our attention and care if we are to have optimism for our futures.

I look forward to sifting through the images and sounds in the edit to see what comes from my time spent at Joya with such generous and spirited people.

There is a lot to think about on return and a surprising new view of this city which seems so green in contrast!

Kay Walsh

1998-2000 MA Fine Art Goldsmiths University London
1992-1995 BA 1st class hons Central St Martins London

Recent Exhibitions
2022-23 All His Rights RAMM Exeter UK
2020 All His Rights OBS Gallery Beast Exhibition UK
2019 Blue Hills Southwark Park Gallery London
2018 Re-landscsping collage work Outpost Exhibition UK
2017 Inhabitants lighbox work Southwark Park Galleries UK

photo Simon Beckmann

Roanne Sanchez - Watts / GBR

Joya: AiR is play. 

Breathing; crying too.

It is expanse, and marvelling. 

Joya: AiR was like holding a mirror up and seeing what was really within. 

During my two week residency, the space, the beauty and the shared community at Joya: AiR reawakened my practice. My confidence and association to the title of ‘artist’ was low, but felt honoured by being given it on my arrival. The trust and respect with which Simon and Donna welcomed all the artists encouraged a sense of investigation into my way of working. 

I spent the time drawing in the studio and responding intuitively to the land and my thoughts. The synergy between making, writing and reading produced a gentle momentum. For a while it feels like you are getting nowhere until you realise that you are actually somewhere. I ended up using simple mark making in stone and pencil to make rings that dealt with ‘meeting points’. They were my way of processing my relationship with my father, who lies ill not far from Joya: AiR. 

I made rings because I wanted to be close. I made rings, many of them, because I was touching a place I hadn’t before. 

Roanne Sanchez - Watts

Using jewellery as a storyteller, Roanne’s practice responds to the meaning found within human connection and acknowledges that jewellery can be the embodiment of the emotional and physical sentiments we share. Often uncomplicated, her forms invite us to place our own tales upon them. They are emotionally laden works, simply put. 

Roanne graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2020 with a BA in Jewellery Design.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Ellyx Martinez / USA

“Joya: AiR is a quietly powerful and awe inspiring space on all levels. Leaving and reflecting on my time here, I feel entirely humbled and grateful for the privilege of being able to share time with this incredible residency and the life that surrounds it. As my time here unfolded, deep listening and appreciation for the land holding our shared home became unavoidable. When applying here, I hoped seeing Spain and its landscape in the context of care my ancestors knew could give me insight on the mixed identity I’m learning to carry. I couldn’t have expected the absolute embrace I felt from the space and the found family that emerged. Whether we were patiently waiting for the sunset together, making tea at all times of the day, wandering to the sound of wind through trees, noticing the power of water in the high desert hills, or giggling at the untamable galloping of Simon and Donna’s dog, Frida as she chased the swallows- there wasn’t a single aspect of this experience that didn’t leave me with a swollen heart and a sense of recognition that comes with reconnecting with family, no matter how distant. The most potent takeaway was the power to witness each day with the people around me, simply enjoying the company of one another as we saw ourselves bloom in our work and discovery with the pacing only a space like this can give. Simon and Donna are incredible hosts and co-creators of this uniquely inspiring and joyful environment”. 

Ellyx Martinez

Ellyx is a student at Virginia Commonwealth University, studying for her Bachelors in Painting and Printmaking. She will graduate in December of 2023 as a Dean’s Scholar. In 2022, her work was shown in a juried exhibition: Layers of Ink in St. Louis, MO as well as a First Friday Exhibition in the Arrowmont gallery in Knoxville, TN. She was also commissioned to design and paint a mural for Mutual Aid Distribution. (Richmond, VA). She was chosen to be Arrowmont’s Visions Intern for the Summer of 2022. https://www.arrowmont.org/2022-summer-visions-intern-ellyx-martinez/.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Inês Coelho da Silva / PRT

“Coming directly from London to Veléz Blanco constituted a radical confrontation, as I constantly debated between the need to embrace the slowness of the desert and the capitalist speed of “doing” that the city imposed on me. It took me a few days to adjust, to stop nervously fidgeting during resting hours, to accept that there could be resting hours. When the land finally got me, and I was with the land, and the land was within me, I was transported to my roots in rural Portugal. The smell of hot summers, the perfect darkness after sunset, the almost absence of human sounds. I lived the memory of how my grandmother always wore an apron over her dress, in which she would keep all her most important things: her handkerchief, her rosary, scissors, house keys, a pencil, a pacifier for the children, some loose grains of sea salt (“You never know when you’ll feel hungry in the fields; if the tomatoes are ripe, you must carry some salt with you...”, she justified). I’ve made my own apron in Joya, but empty, to be filled with notes to remember and ideas I could need later. I walked around and took notes, embroidering on my apron (my slow notebook) plants I connected with and wished to research later. I’ve learned about/from/with endemic plants, travelling others, and the ecosystem that embraces them (us) all together. My apron is now accompanying me on further walks”.


Inês Coelho da Silva

Inês Coelho da Silva is an artist and researcher based between London and Porto. She graduated with an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in 2021 and is currently collaborating with the collective The Gramounce for the 2023-2024 Food and Art Alternative MA. Upcoming projects include the European research project SEEDS - Means for a Sustainable Art Practice (PT, ES, GR), and residencies at the Institute for Postnatural Studies (ES), La Foresta (IT), and Matadero Madrid: Centre for Contemporary Creation (ES).

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Claudia Robalino / ECU

“At Joya: AiR, I engaged with the landscape intuitively. Mapping my daily walks and documenting them through a series of interactive “tools” made with wild clay collected onsite. 

The sculpted tools play with the body intimately. They focus on the corporeal postures experienced during a walk, and the pauses taken to smell, touch, and observe. The process of making happened indoors, working in the studio only from memory to translate the walks into material narratives and the rhythms of my body into rituals of repetition. The objects laid out on the communal table at the end of the residency, remember the daily ritual of shared dinners with the artists. They rearrange the clay from the site into a reductive geometry and ephemeral botanic surfaces that evoke the body-nature interrelations - the linear and cyclical times, the ecological growth and transformation, individual and collective, sound and silence. A performative encounter in which the space inhabited is the residual trace of the walk and the unfired material is the medium of temporal documentation. 

The roads in the landscape were an invitation to walk, yet the paths taken during my residency were unpredictable and unplanned, exposing them like a text that needs to be read in order to embody the vast space. The encounters with the land are not reduced to a place, a length, a material, or a location; but rather transcribed into tools of observation in the abstraction of language. The steps taken are visually undocumented, allowing the space to be inhabited by anyone who experiences the objects; and that itself creates another space too. 

As part of my practice, walking in nature is primary to the work, and yet the spatial experience is left to the user’s imagination. Not showing a walk or a representation of it, but encounters between geography, body and ritual. An evocative narrative of corporeal and sensorial moments experienced outdoors and dislocated to the "domestic" indoors”.

Claudia Robalino

Claudia is a multidisciplinary Ecuadorian designer, she studied Architecture in Ecuador, Sustainable Design at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign - USA and recently graduated with MA in Architecture at the Royal College of Art London, where she won the Dean's Prize, Head of Program Prize and was nominated for the RIBA Silver Medal Prize for her thesis "Tailoring Camouflage." This project, driven by her childhood living in the Andes, is a vital part of her creative practice; focused on methods of environmental conservation such as expressive camouflage and ancestral rituals of planting, weaving and walking in nature. Her work investigates the body-nature interrelationships across multiple scales of intimacy, interweaving bodily experiences and cyclical living while actively confronting extractivist forms in vulnerable ecosystems. Her projects have been published in Architects Journal, Linseed Journal, Koozarch, and Arts Thread, RIBA among others and exhibited in Galleries in London, Rome, the Tallinn Design Festival and Ecuador. Soundscapes, scent and oral histories are part of her investigation, transcribing them into digital & spatial interventions which often use photography and natural materials and allow for collective experiences to take place; alongside new dialogues & connections.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Eric Araujo / USA

“An adventure in magnitudes and minutia.  Like The Powers of Ten,  Joya lets you know just how small you really are.  There’s a clarifying  silence that swaddles the valley and abates the limits of your senses. Gazing through the horizon, depth is abstract, shapes of greens, blues, greys and subtle pinks mix, float, and flatten.  In July the Sun commands.  There’s a tempo to align with as the rhythm of the day is gripped by the heat.  Cool mornings offer the landscape and the possibility to  traverse the barranco below or engage with studio practice.  Come midday it seems the world has paused.  As the sun sets beyond the mound, the wind picks up and a calm has come to the day.  It is this feeling of tranquilidad that I left Joya with and now attempt to maintain as I’ve returned home to New York City.

I went to Joya without intention.  I sought to decompress, slow down, process, and gain awareness and experience for how it is possible to live and thrive with climate consciousness on remote depopulated land and simultaneously give back to that land.  Simon and Donna have breathed life into a place that saw past generations walk away from, their cortijo is the nucleus of a climate positive enclave that welcomes a diverse group of creatives into an intimate setting.  Without distraction I made watercolors, pencil and pen drawings, clay and driftwood sculptures, and transformed  some old bamboo shades into piles of lattice I then wove into sculptural forms.  I slept well, wrote, read, and shared stories and healthy  “Ricisima” meals with my cohort, it was an invaluable experience and I am incredibly grateful to Simon and Donna for their relaxed spirits and jovial gracious hospitality”.

Eric Araujo  - estadounidense/Nueva York

AiR: July 10-24th, 2023

Eric Araujo is an interdisciplinary artist from New York. His practice extends across various mediums such as sculpture, drawing, and public practices. Eric received his BFA from Pratt Institute and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Eric’s work has been shown in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the di Rosa Preserve in Napa Valley, the Canzani Center Gallery at Columbus College of Art and Design, Johannson Projects in Oakland CA, BRIC Arts Brooklyn and Raritan Valley Community College in NJ. In Spring of 2017 he was the sculpture fellow at The Bascom Center for the Arts in Highlands, NC where he created 3 large-scale permanent outdoor public works, and during the summer of 2018 Eric collaborated with the artist Danh Vo on new sculptures that were exhibited at the SMK in Copenhagen.
Most recently from November 2022 - January 2023 Eric had a solo exhibition of his most recent body of sculpture and wall works with Chashama in NYC. For 10 years he served as Adjunct Assistant Professor of 3D Design, Sculpture and Drawing at Raritan Valley Community College. He is currently the Mount Maker for the Museum of Modern Art.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Richard Mason / GBR

“Joya: AiR is without doubt a unique place. High up in the hills of the Sierra María-Los Vélez Natural Park you can wander freely past almond groves and amongst the pine trees. My early morning walks provided time for reflection and inspiration for making. Having left the trappings of my studio behind I was free to experiment with whatever came to hand. The clay, wild plants and grasses that I found provided the perfect materials with which to explore themes of lightness and fragility that continue to fascinate me.

Thank you, Donna and Simon for your support and amazing hospitality. I will treasure the memories of so many wonderful meals shared in the warm evenings with strangers who very quickly became friends”.

Richard Mason

Richard Mason’s mobile sculptures explore themes of balance, lightness and a sense of joy! He is interested in forms that fill a space with little volume and have a spare, restrained aesthetic. The limited palette of colours and choice of materials reflect these concerns. He uses found materials as well as wood and metal to kinetic constructions that are as efficient and simple as possible, in a balance of function and form.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Cristal Buemi / CAN

“For me, space in its many forms, was the main thing I was longing for during my time at Joya: AiR.  Physical Space - from the beautiful studio provided for me to reconnect with my practice of stop motion animation, to the incredible landscape where I gathered natural materials like wild flowers, herbs, rocks and pigments to experiment with.  Emotional Space - for personal reflection, writing and engaging conversations shared with my fellow artists on walks, and at our family dinners where we were blessed each night with Donna’s beautiful homemade cooking.  Mental Space - a slow paced serene environment to share our practices, and learn about each others’ journeys, approaches and perspectives every night at our artist talks.  But most importantly the space to allow for each artist to have their own unique experience, free from production pressures, where one can dive deep into new ideas, materials, and techniques, while being present and grounded back into the land.

I feel very grateful for this incredible space centered around community and ecological art making. I will hold this time, the work/ ideas created and the new woven friendships in my creative soul for a while to come. Gracias La Joya.  Hasta la próxima with love”!

Cristal Buemi

Stop Motion | Multimedia Artist | Art Educator

Cristal holds a BA from Toronto Metropolitan University and an MA from Bau, Design College of Barcelona. Her collaborative and individual works have been exhibited worldwide including its inclusion in Animac (2017) The New York City Independent Film Festival (2017), Venus Fest (2021) and broadcasted on AMC (2022). Most recently her work exhibited at Harbourfront Centre’s Pandemic Postcards Series as part of CoMotion Festival (2022), at Fashion Art Toronto (2022), and animations she contributed to the HBO documentary “Great Photo, Lovely life” which premiered at South by Southwest last month (2023).

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Marta Abbott / USA

“As soon as I arrived at Joya: AiR I knew I had found my way to someplace very special. I found myself surrounded by sweeping views of landscapes that are as rich in history as they are beautiful, and welcomed by hosts who had interwoven their own story into that of the land’s in a way that honors all that came before, but also makes way for the new.

My original plan was to work on a personal project but changing deadlines shifted my focus to a different, already developing body of work in which I wanted to explore the antique photographic process of cyanotypes, finding a way to combine it with my practice of making work using colors that I extract from organic materials and make into ink. In my mind, both processes begin with light, with the transforming of light into something else, something more tangible and which remains. The photo studio at Joya and the bright, Andalusian sun that was so generous with its beams proved to be the perfect place to conduct experiments and explore materials and methods in new ways. I was able to make my inks from the things that grow on Joya’s grounds in between sessions in the darkroom, and I soon fell into a very happy rhythm of working that helped me find exactly where I needed to go. The fellow residents I shared my time at Joya with are all people I feel very lucky to now know. Their work and creative missions were often kindred to mine in inspiring ways, and one of the best parts of each day were the sincere and engaged exchanges we got to have about life and work.

Joya: AiR creates the rare set of conditions which harmoniously allow for both rest and creation. Being there allowed me to focus, to immerse myself in my work, and to catch my breath. I left feeling incredibly grateful for my time there and with a greater sense of awareness and appreciation for the natural resources we so often take for granted. I also feel a great deal of gratitude towards Simon and Donna, who understand the meaning of hospitality so well, and who provide support to those working in the arts through what is clearly a true labor of love. I’m smiling as I write this now during the plane ride home while thinking back on the beautiful time I had, and know I will carry my experience at Joya with me for a long time to come”.

Marta Abbott

Born in Amsterdam, 1983, Marta grew up between the U.S., Prague, and Amsterdam. Bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts with a minor in English Literature from Salve Regina University, Rhode Island, second degree in Art Restoration with a focus on paintings and frescoes, completed in Florence, Italy.

Selected Shows since 2020:
September - October 2022, La Caduta, Premio Cramum, Mercato Centrale Milan October 2022, Little Windows, Praise Shadows Gallery, Boston, Mass
October 2022, Visionary Projects Show, online gallery
October 2022, Floweries, Vuotopieno, Rome
December 2021 - Pietra viva, Divario Gallery, Rome, Italy
October 2021 - Open House Rome, Rome, Italy
October 2021 - Rome Art Week, Dylan Tripp Studio, Rome, Italy
September 2021 - Many Solo Shows, group show, Numeroventi, Florence, Italy
July 2021 - Linguaggi contemporanei della stampa d’arte at Fondazione Il Bisonte, Florence, Italy July 2021
May 2021 - Liminal Forms, Collaborative works with Nicolas Denino, Cappella Marchi, Seravezza, Italy December 2020 - December 2020 - Particolare di Paesaaggio, group show, Contmeporary Cluster, Rome, Italy.
October 2020 - Natural Landscapes, Rome Art Week, Marigold, Rome, Italy.
October 2020 - Stargazers, Cimitero Acattolico di Roma, Rome, Italy.
October 2020 - Edit Napoli Design Fair, with Naessi Studio, Time, Framed, Naples, Italy

Publications - Featured in Make Ink by Jason Logan, Abrams Press, 2018, and most recently in The Floristry, Hong Kong, Pre-Spring 2023 issue.

Films - Featured in feature-length documentary The Colour of Ink, National Film Board of Canada, 2022

Awards - Second place 2022 Premio Cramum art prize for best artist in Italy under 40.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Maraid McEwan / GBR

"I travelled to Joya: AiR to focus on a project around the theme of Eco Anxiety. I had planned to create a group of objects that translated emotions through tactile dialogues and aid the expression of existential ecological anxiety. Upon arrival I was struck by the incredibly beautiful and diverse landscape, situated in a carbon neutral setting that seemed to thrive within its environment, resulting in admiration and awe, feeling quite the opposite of anxiety and doom.

I explored a new direction to understand the parallels in feelings between Joya and the urban spaces of home, and what was needed to convey these intersecting emotions. By incorporating found objects from meandering walks through the branco together with my laser cut designs, I began to explore how these feelings of anxiety could live alongside eco awakenings.

This all led to the creation of a set of almost alien, dark and intriguing ceramic objects, drawing you in whilst making you question their purpose and asking how they might speak and interact with each other. I tried to take off my designer hat and relinquish control to the confusing feelings; writing and culminating in an essay I called “The necessity of the strange”. The strange is the fascinating, the weird, the thing that pulls you in. Creating a dream like reality of strangeness through my objects may radically represent the emotions I have been trying to emanate, with the unperfect reflecting just how confusing eco anxiety can be.

I am so grateful to Joya: AiR for such an enlightening time not only with the project, but with the minds around me, and to Donna and Simon for creating such a special place. Thank you."

Maraid McEwan

Maraid is a researcher, designer and artist utilising interactions and installation as tools for social change. Her work focuses on the reconceptualisation of emotions, in both areas of personal escapes and community. Currently she works as a freelance designer and researcher at the Victoria and Albert Museum and is pursuing her own experimental design practice and research. Last year she held the position of Designer in Residence at the Victoria and Albert museum 2022, exhibiting a solo show at the museum in July: “Embodied Mindful Sounds”. She has an MA and MSc from the Royal College of Art in Global Innovation Design, and a BA in Textile Design from the University of Leeds. She has held solo shows of her work in illustration in London, and displayed my work collaboratively at multiple institutions.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Laurie Wen / USA - Hong Kong

“On my first day at Joya: AiR, fellow resident Maraid said to me, “Wow, everything here is so beautifully framed.” I said, “I know!” We had a good laugh when we realized she was referring to the physical frames of paintings, while I was thinking of “framing” in the abstract sense. It was clear to us both that Joya: AiR is a living frame joyfully curated by Simon and Donna. Frames make us pay attention. Being at Joya reminded me of going to Isamu Noguchi’s garden museum in New York City: paying attention to every slit in Noguchi’s stone sculptures primed me to marvel at every crack in the sidewalk after leaving the museum. 

Donna and Simon say people tend to have more vivid dreams at Joya. I wonder if it’s not so much the dreaming part that is more vivid, but the remembering part. When we’re at Joya, we intentionally abandon our regular life rhythms. Our usual schedules, tasks, and mental habits fall away. I think our brains have more open space for our conscious and unconscious thoughts to take shape and wander. Dreams that we may not remember in our normal life may find it easier to get our attention when we’re here. 

In that seemingly paradoxical frame of mind cultivated by Joya—a focused sense of openness—I allowed myself to take creative steps that probably wouldn’t even have occurred to me elsewhere. I arrived at Joya planning to make monotypes and to work on my book about the Hong Kong democracy movement. I did make dozens of monotypes, using ink made of poppy petals and acorn caps gathered from Joya’s grounds, thanks to fellow resident Marta, who shared her skill with us. But I didn’t touch my book at all. Instead, amidst birdsong, crickets’ chirping, howling winds, and Frida’s barks, I started writing songs for a musical about the democracy struggle in Hong Kong. The attempt is absurd—I’ve never written songs before; I’ve only watched a few musicals in my entire life; and the topic is, well, counterintuitive. But somehow Joya made me think it was possible, even sensible, to move forward with this crazy idea. I wrote six songs and a basic structure for the musical during my residency. I can’t wait to perform the finished spectacle at Joya in the future”.

Laurie Wen

Laurie studied filmmaking and worked on independent films in New York City before switching her focus to activism and writing. She's working on a book about the democracy movement in Hong Kong, her hometown. She also dabbles in printmaking. Laurie's currently based in San Francisco and loves to play the accordion.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AIR / Catherine Fraser / CAN

“At Joya: AiR leaned into a two week adventure and experience gathering and intermingling with the land and residents coming and going. An experimental artistic dialogue developed between the land and what it produced. A place where land and clouds met. A dance of inner and outer landscapes. A rhythm and flow of the land was heightened by contrast of dry cracked clay soil and the flow and liquefaction of the clay in barrios. My artistic process consisted of experimentation with nature creating under paintings, gathering clay, clay painting with acrylic paints, sculpting and watercolour plein air.

The words that describe Joya: AiR are: flow, intermingling, compassion, nurture the land and nature. Artistic synergies and interactive meetings with those with varied backgrounds connect during unexpected paths crossing during the day and gathering through delicious vegan evening meals prepared by the hosts. There was the rhythm of the day and rhythmic lines with the landscape. Many areas to walk on foot in this divine, remote landscape. While in nature I enjoyed experiencing and sitting among the olive and almond trees and feeling the tactile quality of the clay. My process involves layering and superimposing ideas and images.

Here I began painting clay on cardboard and paper to mimic the temperament, the flow and the texture of the land. As the weather cleared there were rainbows to enjoy, sunrises and sunsets and I was able to sit and do plein air. It was an emotional and expressive time. As a lover of adventure, experimentation, and process in remote landscapes, this was a place for me.

Rubbing elbows with Simon and Donna, Yvonne, the other artistic creatives/ residents and pets and their dedication to a sense of place, tending and supporting the land and nurturing of artists in a unique way was exemplar and heart warming. I enjoyed their conversation and laughter as they weeded outside my studio. I leave with ideas for paintings, memories of olive trees with star like flowers on the stems and almond trees with their gnarled trunks with almond pods formed, and Simon says “ it is to be a good crop this year”
New landscapes are both refreshing, and unknown coming from a temperate green climate to a drier, land of desert colours. A different energy and slower pace. I am.. I am grateful and say thank you and blessings for the time, experiences, efforts and encouragement of many people”.

Catherine Fraser

Catherine has painted professionally since 1983 with art studios in Victoria and the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, BC Canada. She works in oils, acrylic, watercolour, graphite and pastels, mixed media and is constantly exploring and experimenting with new artistic responses to the world around her. Catherine has a love of nature superimposing and layering images and plein air painting using watercolours, charcoal, pen and acrylic paints. Drawing and expanding drawing has been a strong interest and practice.

Catherine is an accomplished and award winning artist having exhibited in over 25 one-woman shows, in Canada, US and Europe. She has an interest in traveling and finding new venues to exhibit. Her artwork has been selected into juried shows and she has received many awards. Catherine’s work is inspired and informed by an interest in colour, design and exploring inner and outer sacred space with a strong narrative.

She has BScN, University of Victoria, diploma Art Therapy British Columbia School of Art Therapy and Certificate in Fine Art From Vancouver Island School Of Art and divides her time between careers as an artist and an art therapist. In all aspects of her life she has woven threads of spirituality and creativity.

www.catherinefraserart.com