photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Maja Štefančíková / Slovakia

Arriving at Joya: AiR was significant for me, as I came with the purpose of exploring the correlation between human will and action with atmospheric phenomena. I planned to have the opportunity to observe the spectacle of clouds every day and to devote myself to artistic research. But not every plan or intention can be realized and fulfilled. Only the first two days I encountered the sky covered with isolated, dense clouds with sharply defined edges, which is characteristic of cumulus. But then an unusual phenomenon occurred in January, when temperatures rose by more than 10 degrees, the wind stopped, and the sky turned into a monotonous blue expanse. Suddenly there was nothing to observe in the sky.

Cloud formation is subject to many factors. My study primarily deals with the movement of air, which is one of the key elements in the formation of clouds and drives atmospheric dynamics. However, if the sky is clear and cloudless, then what do I study? This question led me to think about the mutual interactions between myself and the environment in which I find myself. In this artistic research, movement is a key element that defines wind and forms cloud shapes. In a clear sky where there are no clouds, the question becomes: how do you move and exist without creating movement?

Maja Štefančíková

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Nathaniel Marchand / CAN

“I spent most of my days at Joya: AiR with my camera in hand, exploring the terraced fields of the surrounding almond farms and the rugged foothills of Parque Natural Sierra María - Los Vélez. At once tranquil and full of splendor, the natural backdrop provided space for reflection and inspiration. I pondered the natural colours available in the region, from the earth pigments, to the possible hues that one could yield from the orange lichen on the almond trees, or the acorn caps of the kermes oaks. Rosemary, thyme, and almond hulls were gathered and steeped into eco-developers for my rolls of film - a recipe I only successfully concocted weeks after my time in residence.

In contrast to the solitude of my days, my evenings were filled with delicious food prepared by our hosts, as well as convivial and critical conversations with my fellow artists-in-residence. As much as I benefited from the time for contemplation and experimentation, I also appreciated the opportunity to engage in discourse regarding creative processes, ecology, and journeys of self-discovery”.

Nathaniel Marchand

Nathaniel Marchand (Métis/Franco-Canadian) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose artistic practice involves exploring relationships to the land and the use of natural materials. Through collage, sculpture, photography, video, audio, performance and installation, he investigates environmental policy, ethnobotanical histories and natural phenomena. An advocate for community and creativity, he frequently facilitates intergenerational and cross-cultural collaborative programs and workshops ranging from eco-arts to new media.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AIR / Polly Hummel / GER

Already the journey to Joya: AiR it’s a wonderful experience: mountains everywhere, almond and olive trees, small cafés. Silence dwells in the valleys, the almond trees have just awoken and the bright, dry earth glows like snow in the moonlight, It’s January, the nights are cold, the day begins in fog and the sun joins us at our coffee break in the late morning. During the day, everyone does their own thing and in the evening we tell each other stories by the fire, stories from Uruguay, Canada, Chile, Italy, England, Belgium and Slovakia. Nobody knows each other and yet we immediately feel at home. It's this wonderful place and the art that sustains us. 

I am a photographer, I have been inspired by this place for new projects and I have continued working on my ongoing project with the topic "Conspiracy". Somehow this also fitted into the barren, desert-like and remote landscape.  

As Donna cooked delicious meals for us every evening, food was always available, it was possible to immerse myself completely in my art. I locked myself in the photo lab, went hiking, did yoga, set up the tripod with my old camera, did photo shoots with the others, sat with Stijn under his almond tree and philosophized about life. It was fantastic! 

And again and again the silence in this place, you can't hear a word. NOTHING. Really! Just the occasional notes that Brigid's violin played on the white fields.

Polly Hummel

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Stijn Brinkman / NED

Coming to Joya: AiR, I didn’t know how to label myself as ‘artist’, whatever that might be. I didn’t bring my violin, nor did I bring my laptop. I came with just one pair of pants (that got torn on the bus to Vélez-Rubio), my binoculars, a cheap sound recorder, a notebook, and enough writing material.

Already on the second day, I felt how deep my relationship with this place and with the group became. Within such a small time, I felt such a strong connection to some of the fellow residents, and to the landscape full of non-human life around us. Getting to know the place as an individual embedded in a warm, caring group (and embedded in a timeline where hundreds of artists were inspired by the same place), became an intimate journey. I befriended an almond tree, melted my body into the softness of the cliffs, wrote a letter to a stone, and walked, walked, walked.

After all, I still couldn’t label myself as artist: these labels would fall short to the open-ended, touching, enriching experience that I had at Joya:AiR. What was most important to me, was the process of becoming close with my fellow residents and the place around us. By sharing this landscape together, I learnt about our bodies and skins, about crossroads of time, about movement. Big thanks to Simon and Donna for providing this opportunity to so many people, I hope I can come back one day!

Stijn Brinkman

After graduating his Bachelor of Russian Studies, his Bachelor in History and his Bachelor of Music (Classical Violin), Stijn Brinkman finished his Master studies in New Audiences Innovative Practice in Reykjavík, Iceland. He developed several projects to question our relationship with our surroundings by extending his performance art with interdisciplinary, site-specific approaches. He has played in hospitals, refugee centers, prisons, and other social institutions with different ensembles in The Netherlands.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Letitia Despina / ROM

For the first two days at JOYA I kept thinking que ho hecho yo para merecer eso? I woke up in the middle of the night and went to look out the window, the small, low-placed window, and got scared by how bright the stars were, I had not seen them this way in a million years. Star-tled, for real.

I woke up every morning to beautiful nothing, birds, but quiet, hilltops and mountaintops and olivetreetops. I wondered if I stayed there for a year would I be at risk of forgetting everything around? Would I ever come to miss anything or anyone? I wondered how long it would take me to learn the animals and the plants and the seasons, how long till i grasped how many hours walking some distant, but visible valley was?

It wasn't just the surroundings, it was also the people and those brief but powerful connections. I realised all over again why it is so important and beautiful (this word rarely makes sense, but it does here) to find oneself in one’s own creativity, without aesthetic constraints, without artificial boundaries.

I’m still breathing sometimes in that rhythm: freedom as a constant move, not a plateau, not a fixed stage, not a place you get to and get comfy, but going and going, getting scared, getting uncomfortable, the rhythm in flow, out of breath, but full of life.

When I left I was in that soft spot where there was only a thin layer between the world and my tears, not sad, just full of feeling. I had a good cry, because it was such a pivotal experience and what didn’t come out through typing it all down in words, or through the soles of my feet walking on rocks and sandy soil, or through the tips of my fingers touching and holding rocks and trees and treasures, needed to get out through the salt water exit.

I’m saying thanks forever, but this tear is baroque.

Letitia Despina

Letitia also has a book shop in Copenhagen

@SUPeR.cph

http://supertimebooks.com

@supertimebooks

Photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Sarah Villeneau / GBR

“Joya: AiR was a magical place - the dramatic landscape, the silence, the remoteness and the vast skies connected me to the earth in a way that took me back to the freedom of my childhood roaming the countryside in upstate New York. I went to Joya with the idea of having time out and recuperation after a very busy year, and to pursue a new direction in my work - sculpting with found materials and to maybe build a small woodfiring kiln - a minigama.

As it happened, I found myself drawn back, as ever, to clay - with wild clay and timber all around, exploring age-old ceramic processes emerged organically as a seamless connection to the environment and a sustainable and productive legacy to contribute to the residency. Not to mention the problem solving along the way - firing the kiln in the wood-fired boiler, rather than in the open, due to high winds and fire risk, was not my original plan, but was thrilling and frightening in equal measure.

Simon and Donna have created a beautiful home and a relaxed, comfortable, easy-going set up, with delicious meals. It was also wonderfully special to meet and share ideas with people from all over the world, with different disciplines, backgrounds, experiences and viewpoints but a shared commitment to exploration, experimentation and the environment.

I look forward to returning one day soon!”

 Sarah Villeneau is a British sculptor working mainly in clay.

Photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Sofía Troncoso / Chile

In the midst of a surreal landscape, that was too closely and too loosely similar to home, words bottled up over time started pouring over at great capacity in what could have been a drought.

The dried up almonds in the tree branches, the desert views, the accompanying sunrises all unveilied many mysteries onto my own person. I had to remind myself that this was growth: to take the own roots of my writing to an unfamiliar space and be able to return even more self assured of their capacity to root into whatever land I wanted them to grow. In an almost lunar space, in the clarity of my studio, in the whiteness of the walls, in the laughter of a friendly stranger, in any weather, my writing grew, germinated and developed into ways I had never predicted they could do before.

 I hold close to my heart what I did during my first artistic residency, the way it brought back the pulse of my own language and creativity, my droughts and my floods, as everything was done intertwined with the surroundings: the juxtaposition of the sparse landscape and the abundant life held in the heart of Joya.

Sofía Troncoso

Sofía Troncoso graduated with a degree in Arts and Humanities, major in Narrative and minor in Communications, and is currently pursuing a MA in Creative Writing. In 2022, she won the national Chilean writing award Roberto Bolaño, and in 2023 she published her first novel “Funerales”. She grew in desertic Antofagasta and is now based in urban Santiago de Chile.

Photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AIR / Nina Maria Allmoslechner / AUT

When I first heard, read, and already got to see photographs of this soul-nourishing place, I could only imagine how it must feel to be part of this artist community. A house in the middle of what seems to be nowhere but feels like everything, a destination that Donna and Simon have been building not only through hard but most importantly heart work. When I arrived I realized that the house from the outside does indeed look like in these photographs, the trees were greener than I expected despite the fact Joya: air lies in one of the warmest places you could find on the map. And perhaps that is what I would like to reflect on. The warmth of this place, and I am afraid I am not talking about the weather right now.
The warmth that my body could instantly feel through Donna’s beyond delicious meals, making sure the artists were being fed nutritious dishes after long days of working in the studio.
The warmth that I got to experience through sincere and very intimate conversations. The warmth through everyone around me holds space for each other and shows respect and understanding of our individual crafts and the language we use to express ourselves.
The warmth of Frida (Donna’s and Simon’s dog), when she would lay against your body to show you that it is a safe space and you are protected by mutual caring energy.
Not to forget the general warmth that Donna and Simon are providing through their incredible space, around 5 pm every day, Will would make sure there’s enough wood to make a fire in the living room, the warmth of the coffee on your lips when the sun is about to rise.
All of this warmth would greet me after all my days of being in full darkness, where I would revisit the negatives for my current project about the first female solo travel writer in the world. Traveling on my own has not always been as smooth, but being a resident at Joya:Air provides me with further tools for my next adventures and creative journey. Warmth and bright moments I shall keep safe like a snow globe when I return back to a landscape that is covered with snow.

Nina Maria Allmoslechner

Nina Maria is a lens-based artist from Austria (b.1998). She graduated in Documentary Photography BA from the University of Arts London in 2021. Her practice is predominantly concerned with vulnerable topics around mental health, womanhood, body image, sexuality, and lens-based memory representation. Nina uses mainly alternative processes such as super 8mm film and analog imagery, she often works with archives that she finds at flea markets wherever she goes or other historical ones that are left behind.
Nina is currently working on several projects from Iceland, including a project about the first woman who wrote travel diaries, Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858), who was from Austria like herself.

Photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Susan Parker / GBR

This wonderful fortnight with the Joya: AiR residency has passed too quickly. My painting practice has expanded with this opportunity to create my own pastels and paints. After my last stay here, I knew that I wanted to use local materials to find the colours of this region and to work with limited water supply in response to the desert nature of this region. I came prepared with a glass muller to grind the rock to make my pigments, a sieve to create a fine powder and gum tragacanth to bind the resulting paste into a usable pastel stick. After a few attempts I finally managed to get the consistency right so that I could create a drawing.

As always, my work is practice led, so inspiration came with the process of making and being immersed in the nature of this special area. This has been a joyous experience for me in sunny rural surroundings with only my work to think about. Delicious food and comfortable accommodation, provided by Simon and Donna, as well as the interesting company of other artists make this a very special time and place.

I experimented with making egg tempera paint using the ground earth to create colour.  Egg, water and a tiny amount of gum tragacanth make a paste like paint. Sadly, honey was not available to use as a preservative due to strange climate conditions over the year which had affected the local bees. Using a light cross hatching technique in several layers I drew images of the local rocks that had helped to make the pigment. The whole process is very calming and favourably changed my way of working in a very slow and mindful manner.

My other work created here was a response to the light, the landscape, the lack of water and the dust. Everything in this valley is inspiring, especially the clear light, long shadows in the evening and the glorious skies.

Thank you again to Joya: AiR. I hope I will be able to come back.

Susan Parker

Susan started her career as an architect. Since her student days she has also illustrated nomadic dwellings for Dr Peter Andrews’ academic books on this subject. One example of Susan’s drawings is in the V&A Museum. Susan continued to work as an architect while alongside other design and art related work. She was involved with the Royal Opera House record drawings of the stage, studied glass design at Central St. Martins College of Art and designed exhibition stands at Olympia.

Throughout her career Susan has painted and exhibited work on the North Yorkshire Open Studios and Lunesdale Studio Trail as well as local galleries. Since 2015 Susan has worked as a full-time artist and is now studying for an MA Painting at Manchester Metropolitan University.  

Photo Sophie Anna Gibbings

Joya: AiR / Lauren Taylor / residency coordinator

I am interested in how creativity can be used as a tool to improve and navigate our wellbeing and mental health. I discovered my love for art during my MSc in Psychology and this has remained an important part of my life. Since graduating I have worked in schools supporting young people to understand and process their emotions. I now volunteer with older adults living with dementia and run community art groups with a focus on enjoying the process. I hope to continue combining my background in psychology with my interest in art and to find more ways to make creativity feel accessible and joyous.

Lauren Taylor.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: guest curator / Sophie Anna Gibbings / USA

Sophie has returned to Joya: AiR as our guest curator. She was here in September 2022 as a resident artist, working primarily with performance and sculpture, using materials found in the landscape and returning them to the landscape at the end of her residency. Sophie recently organized and developed her own collaborative artist residency in Margate, UK and hopes to continue to bring artists together through these residencies and curate exhibitions around the theme of regeneration.

 On Sophie’s practice…

 “I reference the practices of regenerative agriculture as an entry point to my work. My process is more about an ecology of the mind, rather than a regeneration of soil. All the materials used for my artworks are found in the landscape and can be returned to the Earth, without any harm to her. It is at this intersection of material and landscape that I explore the core values of my work.

I don’t see myself separate from nature but rather as two artists working together. Performance is the beginning of this collaboration, often referencing my own body as it relates to nature’s body. Using different mediums, including printmaking, alternative process photography, painting, and sculpture, I am exploring how an initial performance done in the landscape can lead to many different bodies of work.

These works are ephemeral, and I have no attachment to their permanence, as we all come from nature and return to nature. By creating an opportunity for non-logical encounters with my art, I intend to increase the viewers sensibility to the environment. I am interested in what happens to the materials after and beyond their time on display, and how this consideration might help regenerate ecologies.”

Sophie Anna Gibbings

Sophie was born in Santa Barbara, California and has lived in the UK for the past 3 years. She received her Bachelor’s degree in photography from Lesley University College of Art and Design. She recently earned her Master’s in Art in Contemporary Photography: Practices and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins. She was awarded the University of The Arts, London Art for the Environment Residency (AER) at Domaine de Boisbuchet, France. Sophie was shortlisted for the University of The Arts, London Maison/0 This Earth Award. She is currently exhibiting her work as part of the Art for the Environment exhibition at GroundWork Gallery in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, UK until June 2024. Other recent exhibitions include Meant to Fade, Laneway Gallery, Cork, IE, Impermanent, Safehouse Gallery, London and a performance for Dance for the Sky, Slash Arts Gallery Houseboat, London.

Sophie’s website: https://www.sophieannagibbings.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophieannagibbings/

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Pardeep Nijjar / GBR

‘I arrived at Joya: AiR to reconnect with a craft I had been struggling to reignite. 

 This wonderful residency has the ability to suspend time. My only marker of time here, is the solar ascent and descent. There is time (without being located in time) for awe. Awe in the landscape, the scale of it, from up high as lower and lower into the valley; the shifting light, the details, the sounds – my favourite being the silence. Not the manufactured silence of ear buds and noise cancelling headphones or simply a lack of traffic, but silence that is palpable. How can silence be the absence of sound when the silence is so vast and so void that it sits upon me, heavy, lead-like, a natural vacuum. A silence that is magnetic – polar attraction – the positive and negative side to the butt end of emotions. Emotions that are central to creating art. A silence and space, endless space that creates a sense of suspension in time.

 I thought I needed to remove myself from distractions in order to write. But actually, being here, what I have learned is that the distractions need only be conducive to writing, not absent. The distractions here are the details in the splitting almond on the tree outside my studio window. The vulture hovering ahead. The hourly movement of the sun across the window. The moments of silence. When distractions are so sweet, so precious like these, they need a new word to describe them – no longer distractions, they are the writer’s stimuli. My time at Joya has stimulated my writing in a way I had hoped, but couldn’t have imagined.

Pardeep Nijjar

Pardeep lives in Nottingham and holds a BA in Arabic and International Relations and an MA in Diplomacy.
He is a project consultant Civil Servant for Central government by day and a writer by passion.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Victoria Moy / USA

Being at Joya: AiR is living in a museum surrounded by beautiful curated works of art, except this museum also feels like a home. Meanwhile, art being newly made and a sanctuary of natural beauty also surround us.

On a 6:30am hike with fellow artists Leo and Ana, I climbed the equivalent of 52 flights of stairs. At the peak, with the glowing sun rising, we enjoyed delicious coffee and breakfast. Then Leo surprised us with packets of clay to make art with! and to leave for others to find when they visit, as we acknowledged our and our arts' impermanence and the beauty in that.

At sunset on most days, I'd walk an hour taking in amazing cloud formations when they were out, spotting different colored rocks and stones, while being greeted by lively bird chirps, and passing rows of almond and pomegranate trees. My tracker would say I'd climbed 21 flights, and I didn't even feel any of the "work."

I got to read a 30-minute-long short story by the fireplace in an impromptu sharing after a few days of working on it to generous listeners who gave thoughtful feedback. Sitting in front of the fireplace each night sharing stories with fellow artists before a delicious dinner made by Donna is another highlight.

With artists coming and going constantly, we would tease each other about who'd be remembered and missed and which of us would be forgotten quickly. Like in nature and in life, there is beauty in the impermanence. I enjoyed the privilege of being a part of the landscape, being a part of varying cycles and turnarounds, engaging with continually changing lots. Whether we're remembered, by some, or not at all, we are still each a part of this space's history.

I'm grateful to Donna and Simon for making such a beautiful dream-like experience also a reality.

Victoria Moy


Victoria Moy is an American author, librettist, playwright, and filmmaker born and raised in New York. She's a 2023-2024 Opera America IDEA grantee. She's the author of "Fighting for the Dream: Voices of Chinese American Veterans from World War II to Afghanistan" and has a B.A. in Theater and M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing.

VictoriaMoy.net
IG @writervickymoy @owlsmarch

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Leonardo Uribe / COL

“My first artistic residency was two transformative weeks 

While I arrived without any expectations or project to develop, Joya: AiR offered me much to work with. A magical and secluded environment that allowed me to focus on my creative work once again.

The landscape encourages great ecological projects such as Joya: AiR itself.

I wandered through nature, climbed nearby mountains and collected materials that enriched my process.

Surrounded by people with generous hearts, knowledge and extraordinary talents, we connected and shared warm moments; often over delicious dinners hosted by our friendly hosts Donna and Simon.

These two weeks were an indelible chapter. A time I will long remember”.

Leonardo Uribe

Leonardo Uribe is a Colombian-born artist living in Australia. He graduated from University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and over the past 20 years has exhibited widely in galleries across Colombia, Venezuela and Australia. In 2021 his work was Highly Commended in the Dobell Drawing Prize #22 in Sydney, Australia.

“Mi primera residencia artística fueron dos semanas transformadoras

Si bien, llegué sin expectativas ni proyecto a desarrollar, La Joya AiR me ofreció mucho con qué trabajar. Un entorno mágico y apartado que me permitió centrarme una vez más en mi trabajo creativo.

El paisaje fomenta grandes proyectos ecológicos como el propio JOYA:Air.

Deambulé por la naturaleza, escalé montañas cercanas y recolecté materiales que enriquecieron mi proceso.

Me rodeé de personas de corazón generoso, conocimientos y talentos extraordinarios, conectamos y compartimos cálidos momentos; a menudo durante deliciosas cenas ofrecidas por nuestros amables anfitriones Donna y Simon.

Estas dos semanas fueron un capítulo imborrable. Un momento que recordaré por mucho tiempo”.

Leonardo Uribe

Leonardo Uribe es un artista nacido en Colombia que vive en Australia. Se graduó de la Universidad con una Licenciatura en Bellas Artes y durante los últimos 20 años ha expuesto ampliamente en galerías de Colombia, Venezuela y Australia. En 2021, su trabajo fue Highly Commended en el Premio de Dibujo Dobell # 22 en Sydney, Australia.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Shona McCombes / GBR

“I came to Joya: AiR at a transitional moment: one week after moving house, a week of living crowded among boxes and plastic and paint, I arrived in this space of absolute spaciousness, clean simple lines and sparse open landscapes and sky. Rooms uncluttered with the debris of everyday life – a place for the mind to roam around without stumbling on something that stops it short.

It was transitional in other ways, too, the season changing palpably through the course of my November week here. Subtler than the sulk of the northern winters I'm used to, where the sun slams the door on you and holds a long grudge; here it's more of a gradual cooling off, a gentle turning away.

Like other transient spaces, there's something suspended about Joya, a cocooning. But there's also something like a narrative thread: a coming and going of people who each weave their own small set of journeys, an exchanging of routes, a passing down of stories (the moonlight dance, the sunrise hike – moments I missed that became part of the lore of the place).

Sometimes, the outside punctures it. During that one November week: news from the Argentinian election, from the Dutch election, relentless news from Palestine. The book I was working on – set in the Netherlands (land of carefully controlled waters and slowly sinking foundations), backgrounded by the Brazilian election of 2018 (land of vibrant mix and violent clash) – starting to feel real again, in good and bad ways. The book had gone through a long lull, and maybe it had felt like those vicious forces were going through a lull too, for a moment, the biggest and brashest of them briefly quieted – but none of it really gone, of course. The world expands and contracts; the work continues”.

Shona McCombes

Shona McCombes is a writer from Glasgow. Her fiction has been published in Gutter Magazine, New Writing Scotland, 3:AM Magazine and Extra Teeth, among others.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Louise Frances Smith / GBR

“Before starting my residency at Joya: AiR, I planned to spend my 11 days drawing, reading and walking into the surrounding landscape. I knew there was clay there but had no fixed intentions of using it - however, the clay drew me in! It’s such a huge part of the landscape you can’t escape it. I collected it on my walks and made it into slip and inks (from red earth) to make my drawings - trying to capture some of the textures in the landscape (with paint brushes I made using local materials), the patterns of strata, rocks, clay; the shape the water erosion has left (but noticing the absence of water); the black clusters of moss on the rocks. There was so much to explore and so much I wanted to try to record.

With another artist we collected and processed some clay in the sun - slaking, sieving, drying, turning, wedging. At the end of each day after this, I sat and watched the sun disappear over the top of the mountains while I made with the clay - a piece that started to grow across a stone that was used when Joya AiR was a farm. It was wonderful to be able to process the clay and connect with the landscape in this way.

I’m extremely grateful to Donna and Simon, their ethos for Joya is truly inspiring and I’ve learnt so much - it’s filled me with aspiration to learn more about how I can bring this way of life back into my everyday life. I’m also very grateful to the other artists I connected with at the residency and their generosity in sharing stories and their work”.

Louise Frances Smith

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Nina Elema / NED

“Joya: AiR is such a special place where nature, art and warmth are naturally blending together. The residency gave me a lot of perspective. Waking up with the sheering of the birds, having walks enjoying the nature and its views surrounded by the beautiful valleys every single day was truly liberating.

A rare opportunity where we set up a painting studio outside under the late November sun. It was the perfect place to focus on experimentation within my painting practice, inspired by the landscapes, the drought and the natural resources. Spending time with other artists was truly inspiring, resulting in new interest in new fields. Thank you Donna & Simon for the care and hospitality, and everyone that made this a wonderful experience”.

Nina Elema

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Henri Blommers / NED

“Het enige doel was geen doel, dat was mijn voornemen toen ik naar Joya reisde. Misschien wat schrijven en nadenken over de toekomst van mijn praktijk. En lezen en wat wandelen. Toen Simon de fourwheeldrive parkeerde bij het prachtig gelegen huis waar andere kunstenaars van de ondergaande zaten te genieten, voelde ik me gelijk thuis op deze magische plek. Een terp eigenlijk in een vallei met uitzicht rondom op bergen, amandel- en granaatappelbomen.

De volgende ochtend schreef ik bij zonsopkomst in mijn dagboek op het ijzeren bankje buiten. Naast mij lag een klein hoofdje van klei, de volgende dag twee en later zou ik overal kunstwerken aantreffen, zelfs een handgeschreven tekst van Zelda Salomon had de tijd doorstaan.

Na mijn eerste koffie begon ik aan wandelingen. Het woeste en tegelijkertijd gelidtekende landschap weerkaatste het frisse winterlicht en gaf een prachtige gloed. Al die witte omgeploegde boomgaarden en verlaten huizen, raakten me. Het daar zijn, alles kunnen, maar niets hoeven. Ruiken aan alle kruidige planten, takjes meenemen van rozemarijn, distels, stenen, het was allemaal heel zinnelijk. Voor ik het wist was ik papier aan het bekladderen met modder of fruitschillen en experimenteerde ik met van alles en nog wat met Vilém Flusser fluisterend in mijn oor om fotografische industriële processen te doorbreken.

Het hoogtepunt van de dag moest dan nog komen, de altijd klaarstaande - vanwege al mijn experimenten- en lieve  Donna en haar maaltijden. Toen ik opperde dat er een Joya receptenboek moest komen, begon de groep keihard te lachen. De vorige groep had dit ook al geopperd en de huidige groep zal waarschijnlijk hetzelfde opperen.

Na terugkomst hield ik tot op de dag hetzelfde ritme vast, spelen en experimenteren zijn de leidraad het doel dient zich altijd zelf wel onderbewust aan. Bedankt Simon en Donna voor wat een geweldige plek jullie hebben gecreëerd. Ik hoop tot snel”.

Henri Blommers

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AIR / Laurie Kemp / NED

“Joya: Air art residency is a magical place where poems start bubbling up at 4 a.m., your heart bursts into song upon seeing the sun set the sky aflame into a thousand glittering colours and the desert wind stills even the most over-active of minds. My writing residency was the perfect kickstart to writing my first novel.

I cried and ran and danced among the almond fields, and found inspiration, community and connection — to my inner muse, my fellow artists and Donna and Simon, Joya’s incredible hosts. ¡Nos vemos pronto, espero! Thank you for a fabulous time ♥️”

Laurie Kemp

Laurie holds a BA in Liberal Arts & Sciences and MSc is in Environmental Economics and additionally completed a year long course in Creative Writing, University of Amsterdam, 2017-2018

Meesterproef, Querido Academia, 2019-2020
Querido Academy is part of Querido, is a leading Dutch publishing house that admits up to 15 young authors per year to help them bring their ideas intro fruition and connect them to literary agencies.

Publication: The Octopus Woman, Voices of the Well, December, 2019 a magazine published by the Anima Mundi School, a learning and research center for the Feminine & the World Soul based on the psychology of Carl G. Jung.

Publication: Deliverance, Voices of the Well, December, 2022
Black-and-white drawings and corresponding poems detailing a year of loss, mourning and profound personal transformation.

photo Simon Beckmann

Joya: AiR / Lucy Peters / GBR

“Joya: AiR is such an impressive project: an ecologically self-sustainable homestead which Simon and Donna share with a varied and ever-changing band of artists. To be in residence was an opportunity for me to invest time in my creative work, and a rare chance to do so alongside other writers, in company with painters, photographers, sculptors and conceptual artists. Days in the studio were punctuated by cups of coffee, cats visiting my window, and walks through an arid, mountainous landscape, spectacular and strange. In the evenings, residents shared moreish vegetarian meals prepared by Donna. I was so grateful for Joya’s cloistered calm and the connections that I made there”. 

Lucy Peters

Lucy’s short stories have been published in Mslexia, Structo, Ellipsis, The Citron Review and Mslexia’s Best Women’s Short Fiction 2023. Her poetry has been published in a Three of Cups anthology and the magazine Strix. Her novel-in-progress, The Child’s Bargain, has been shortlisted for the First Novel Prize 2023 and longlisted for the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers Prize 2023.  

She won second prize in the Vogue Talent Contest 2010, was a runner-up in Mslexia’s Flash Fiction Competition 2023, was shortlisted in the Bridport Prize Flash Fiction Competition 2019, and was longlisted in the Bath Flash Fiction Award 2019 and the Mslexia Flash Fiction Competition 2020. 

Lucy has a degree in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, the University of London. For over a decade, she has worked as an editor, copywriter and journalist, specialising in art and culture.

Freelance writer and editor

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-peters-b6084442/