15 June - 13 July 2019
To describe my experience I would say Trelex Nyon gave me an incredible beautiful and fragile space to create. Filled with time and the ever shifting light of long summer days. Fragile in a sense, because different from my usual work, it was only me holing, creating and working with the space given. Which means anything that influenced me in that time also reflected back on the use of the studio space given. Trelex also was a space for a dialogue with others as much as myself. This I found important to experience because in my normal day to day life the dialogue with oneself doesn’t receive as much space often.
About the process of the residency I can say the time there felt quite a lot like part one and part two. Part one being the first two weeks, where the first week really felt like settling in and then beginning to get a feel for how I’m working when given the time to do what I want. After the second week new people arrived and I found myself being the next one to go home, even if there were still two weeks to go. In the second part especially I met amazing people and there was a real sense of community.
Long walks, communal cooking, swims in the lake, movie nights. My urge to explore Geneva or the surrounding art venues, to “get input” began to quiet down towards the middle of the residency time and I experienced this as a positive shift.
I began to go inwards rather then searching outwards. Working with a mix of sculpture and photography, I began to use more found materials rather then making my way to Geneva to shop art supplies or then to buy things online. This felt liberating and brought me back to my early days of art making. The interest I had in the work I was making became more about the materials, objects and the space as well as the context in which everything was used, rather than just the look of things.
Before arriving in Trelex, we all prepared a little presentation about our own work and work of inspiring artist. Now some of the images from artists I had found interesting before Trelex, seemed quite superficial. I could really see how my perception was changing.
The images I took of the work I made feel incredibly intimate in a way since they reflect the playfulness, ease and non judgemental attitude towards art making I was engaging with during the residency.
The place where the residency is located feels pretty perfect, amongst other creative studio spaces, right next to the little cool stream and not far from the station. I am very thankful for my time there and I hope that there will be more years for the Trelex Residency to come in one way or another.
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