My time at Joya: arte + ecología / AiR – two weeks in October 2021 – was part of a larger review of my creative practice with the aim of experimenting within the landscape: making shorter walking journeys; creating and documenting ephemeral artworks; using natural materials, artefacts, and the landscape itself; and to consider the relationships between lifestyle and the warming European environment.

I arrived equipped with field recording equipment to learn more about how to capture sounds and images and quickly realised the challenge I had within such a quiet landscape. But with this came a slowing down, listening, observing and connecting. Walking each day, I let things unfold naturally recording birdsong, insects, wind, bells, rockfall, water, and footsteps, whilst also using what I found around me to create a record of each walk as lines and forms on the ground.

Thanks so much to Simon and Donna who have made Joya such an incredible place. I loved having the space and time to be able to explore working in this way; being alone; and also, in amazing company with them and the other artists and writers in residence.