Art-Illa is our Baleàric Irish Arts Residency supported by the Arts Council of Ireland International Residency is a creative immersive lab, which consists of an immersive transnational exchange and cooperation across multidisciplinary art forms.
The first phase of the Residency ended at FiraTàrrega International Street Art Festival.
Participating artists Jude Penders, Gill Byrne, Rosa Forteza and Alejandro Navarro, spent two weeks on the Baleàric island of Mallorca from August 29 to September 12, 2022. They were fully engaged in a creative immersion lab, mentored by the Actor, Director and Theatre Author Enric Ases in Mallorca.
What did the Artists say about it?
The residency for me was nothing short of inspiring. It fed me creatively at every step, letting me experience the differences in our cultures like food, habits of daily life, and alternative perceptions of the world. I overcame my fear of deep water by experiencing the Mallorcan relationship with water – which was fascinating to me as it allowed me to dive into the aspect of Irish culture linked to the sea through the lens of Mallorcan culture.
The music and folklore were also of particular interest to me because they are such strong facets of Irish culture. Listening to the music I can hear elements similar to Irish and Scots trad music, as well as influence from middle eastern and north African styles. The host company pointed me towards bands and albums to listen to and helped me find a music shop where I got some books, conversations, and a traditional Mallorcan whistle – a ‘Flaviol’. I plan to experiment and fuse Mallorcan and Irish trad music.
Artistically, the work we did with the mentor (Enrico Ases) was insightful and incredibly productive. It helped me to strengthen my processes of working with other artists on a project. I recommend anybody to work with him if they can. Working with so many artists from other disciplines and other cultures did a lot to strengthen my artistic development by approaching work in different ways, from different angles.
Myself and Gill actually realised while working together during the residency that there are a number of ideas and themes that we both want to work with and decided to form a company to work together to develop our shared notions toward production in the future.
Overall the program has massively re-affirmed my self worth as an artist and re-lit the creative fire under me.
-Jude Penders
This experience enriches us as artists and helps us to consolidate our company – Cia. Moviments.
Due to our background in physical and visual theater, the collective creation workshop did not provide us with unfamiliar knowledge. What helped us a lot was to put a name onto things, to have clear working tools and to better structure our creation processes. In short, it helped enourmusly in the organisation of our work. It thought us how to use our time productively during the creation process and, as Enric Ases said, it gave us tools to make the process healthier.
The experience of meeting Gill and Jude was very enriching, and we hope it will continue to be so. They have a very different imaginary from ours; the difference between the Mediterranean and the Celtic essence was noticeable. We believe that multiculturalism is wealth.
The company Moviments has been attending Fira Tàrrega as accredited professionals for the last 7 years. Going this year under the Art-Illa project has been a pleasure and as artists it has been a great satisfaction to be related to a large-scale project like this, and we are very grateful.
– Rosa & Alejandro
Video and Photo Gallery
