Newsletter  281
November 2025

We harvested the walnut and persimmon, and concluded a vibrant residency season with around forty residents and two open studios.
This newsletter shows some recent highlights. Residencies and projects earlier in 2025 are on the 2025 page. 

The first autumn rains have finally arrived after 120 days of drought! The plants are thriving, and the first flowers are already starting to bloom. At the same time, we’re enjoying the famous Portuguese late summers: Verão do Marmelo and Verão de São Martinho, which may continue until well into December.

At this moment, our friends Kevin and Sara Tolman (USA) are living at OBRAS, to take care of the house and to make art.

November and December will also be a period of renovation (repairing terraces, replacing mosquito nets), excavation (uncovering more remains of the ancient settlement), and selecting residents for 2026. A challenging job will also be developing proposals for Evora_27. See lower in this newsletter and on the page upcoming events.

On 21 September we had a wonderful Open Studio, starting with poems by Jane Flett (UK) and a view on equinox through an installation by Rasma Puspure (Latvia), followed by a dance performance by Manuela Tessi (Italy; dance), Nicolle Vieira (Brazil; dance) and Vintani Nafassi (music; Mozambique) and a sound scape with kinetic elements by Modris Svil­äns (Latvia). In between we visited the studios of Tim Gleason (USA), Ginta Grūbe (Latvia) and António Tavares (Portugal), who presented their recent works. 

An obvious highlight of the Open Studio of 21 September was the improvisation dance performance in the patio, by Manuela Tessi (Italy) and Nicolle Vieira (Brazil), set to music by Vintani Nafassi (Mozambique). Dressed in black and white, the two dancers began with slow, solitary movements, as if searching for something. Gradually, their pace quickened and their solos merged into a dynamic duet. The slideshow gives an impression. A full video is available.

Patty Ortiz and George Sanchez (USA) worked on In the Court of the Conqueror, a project they began in 2021. Patty is a visual artist, and George is a performance artist. In this project, they explore and challenge historical narratives and social paradigms surrounding indigeneity in the Americas—Patty with her Native American heritage and George with his Ecuadorian roots. But the project delves into broader themes such as democracy, religion, chaos, and the complex relationship between place and ownership.
Their work at OBRAS included interviews, video recordings, and the development of parts of a theatrical performance. Together, they presented a captivating artist talk that left a lasting impression.

Gunnþóra Ólafsdóttir (Iceland) is a scientist specializing in cultural geography, with a particular focus on how nature affects human health and well-being. During her residency, she worked on an article exploring the impact of daylight on health—specifically, how urban planning influences human exposure to natural light. Using simulation models, she quantified how much light each home in a town receives. Her findings point to a troubling trend: since the early 20th century, exposure to daylight has been steadily declining due to wrong choices in urban planning. She is now developing recommendations for architects and city planners.

Anneke van der Eerden (Netherlands) came to fully dedicate herself to her art, while also reflecting on the next phase of her artistic career. During her stay, she experimented with watercolour – a medium she rarely uses.
Anneke drew inspiration from the play of shadows on her terrace, the calming presence of a centuries-old oak tree near her apartment, and the deep history of human presence in the region. And what truly amazed her was the spectacular tiles collection at the museum in Estremoz.

Modris Svilāns (Latvia) collected sounds from sheep bells, pneumatic hammers, the voices of fellow residents, stones scraping against each other, and more. With these raw materials, he composed a soundscape. He also created kinetic installations that he integrated into the piece. The final performance combined the soundscape and kinetic elements, with shadows on the wall adding a striking visual dimension. The result was a truly unique experience that left the audience in awe.

Tim Gleason (USA) had a two-month residency. He worked on a show that will soon be presented in Palm Springs. His drawings were inspired by letters he invited gay friends to write, sharing memories of their first gay experiences and their life during the height of the AIDS epidemic. The result was a body of work that was layered both in literal and metaphorical sense: over drawings of love scenes and romantic landscapes, fragments of the letters were written on transparent sheets.

Jane Flett (UK, currently based in Berlin) was completing the final edits of her second novel while simultaneously working on a third. The second is a grotesque tale laced with dark humour, it reflects on themes such as chaos and cannibalism. The third novel explores mysterious locations where inexplicable disasters occur—reminiscent of the Bermuda Triangle, though in Jane’s story, the setting is a remote desert. In addition, she was preparing a writing workshop she will lead in October.

Ginta Grübe (Latvia) describes herself as a conceptual jewellery artist. Her work is crafted from found objects and leftover materials, often blurring the line between adornment and sculpture. Some pieces resemble wall mosaics more than traditional jewellery. One striking example was a two-meter-long necklace composed of linked slices from the bases of dried palm leaves. She also incorporated cork, small marble blocks, and old iron sourced from the flea market. Volunteers among her fellow residents were eager to model her unusual and evocative creations. A photo impression is below.

Sarah Pedlow (USA, currently based in the Netherlands) led a workshop on embroidery, focusing on both historical and regional traditions, as well as contemporary textile art. The participants (from USA and Canada) were so enthusiastic that they partly skipped the tourist side program to spend more time on their creations.

Rasma Puspure (Latvia), a jewellery maker, came to explore the possibilities of working with Portuguese marble. During her residency, she deepened her technical skills and experimented with creating wearable pieces of marble. For some of these, she collaborated with a local stonecutter whose daily craft is shaping gravestones. Particularly captivating was the installation she created to catch the sunset during the equinox: viewers were invited to gaze through six marble bracelets aligned with the setting sun.

Azila Reisenberger (South Africa) returned for a residency at OBRAS Holland. She was working on a novel: a woman who lost her memory and chapter after chapter she finds pieces of knowledge and information back in the puzzle that is her life. Using the genre of a "detective" helps in following one step after the other, and it keeps the readers' suspense.
Although the book is witty easy read, it is a philosophical allegory: it guises a quest for identity and truth. The character who seemed to be difficult and "obnoxious" in the first few chapters, is like an onion - she sheds layer after layer, and in her core, the reader discovers a life of humanity, charity and goodness.
The residency allowed Azila to totally immerse in her project. She made big progress and left full of creative spirit.

Also good to know:

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Evora will become the European Capital of Culture in 2027 (Evora_27).  A great achievement and a great challenge for “our” city. According to the jury, key for this victory was the theme that Evora choose: “vagar”, which means wander without hurry. It refers to the vision that “slow” can bring better quality in daily live. 
We first intended to participate with a thematic program on “marble” as related to art, architecture, history, landscape, geology and economy. The program includes ten exhibitions, ten site-specific performances, excursions in cities and industrial zones, two symposia and several more projects. For this we established a fruitful collaboration with four University departments, the municipality of Vila Viçosa, the museum of Evora and the Marble sector. A draft of the full proposal is available on request and a summary is on this page.
Recent developments at Evora_27: unexpected budget cuts and severe delays in opening calls for proposals, forced us to adapt our strategy. For Evora_27 we decided to focus on just four projects.
In addition we assist in eight project proposals by former OBRAS residents. This page gives a listing and some more info of the proposals.
And as the already established collaboration proves extremely inspiring and productive, we decided to extend our horizon to well after 2027. This gives time to find other funding and dilutes the work load over a longer time.

In the scope of preparing our proposals for Evora_27 and beyond, we made a book showing some 60 marble-related projects of OBRAS residents over the past 15 years.   

Some more about OBRAS:

We’ve decided to conclude the residency program of OBRAS-Holland, as it no longer fits within our future plans for OBRAS. OBRAS-Holland has hosted and supported around a hundred residents and has been a highly productive and inspiring place for creating art. You can read more about past residencies on the corresponding pages. The dedication of our local host, Josien Jongejan, was key to its success.

The annual report on the OBRAS activities in 2024 is now available on request.

OBRAS is working on a continuation of its activities for the long term. For this, the management will be rejuvenated and the organisational structure will be slightly adapted. It will be done gradually in 2026-2027, to make sure that the residency program will continue largely unchanged.  More information with follow in updates of this newsletter.