This page shows residents and their projects in 2023.
most recent residents and their projects are in the newsletter.
Other pages show residents and their projects in 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018,  2017,  2016, 2015,  2014,  2012 and 2013  and 2004-2011. 
A visual collage of residents is in this slide show.

This page tells about most of the residencies and related events that took place in 2023. The most recent are in the newsletter.

Seema Lyer (UK, living in Berlin) was working on three, very different stories.
One is was a non-fiction, though absurd story about a woman who was by error officially declared death and was trying already for five years in vain to get this declaration reversed.
A second story was about Priya, a six years old girl who tries understand the absence her brother. He died but her parents do not tell her. Often Priya hears family members talk about him, so she fantasizes that he is invisible, and that he is an invisible friend of her. 
A third story was about a toothbrush that suddenly disappeared out of a young woman´s bedroom. She concludes that this must be a Houdini act of her boyfriend. He has always been good in disappearing acts and she has a long-time experience in being the magician’s assistant. Now also most of his clothes have disappeared, but she could recognize all the signs of a poorly executed disappearing act…

Martine de Kok (Belgium) is a multi-talent: pianist, singer-song writer, visual artist and novelist. During her residency she was finishing a book she started on in her previous residency. A children’s book that talks about the phenomenon of time. A lot of birds, with a robin in the leading role, go deep into the forest to find time, even although none of them knows how time looks like and each have a different expectation.
At her artist talk Martine read the synopsis and followed by slide show with the drawings that will illustrate the book. During the slide show she did a beautiful jazzy improvisation on the piano. 
On the last day of her residency Martine mailed her draft to the most renown publisher for children’s book in Belgium and the day after she got her invitation to discuss publication. 

Anna Geary-Meyer (USA, living in Berlin) was working on a novel: Chocolate mouse, that tells, among others, about the fear and wish of a young woman to be pregnant. The woman is sexually confused and lives a bohemian, opportunistic life. In a deeper layer the novel also contemplates on a time spirit in which writing about personal trauma and suffering seems to have become fashion, as if life becomes more beautiful by experiencing violence. Anna´s writing is also informed by her professional training in clinical psychology. 
 
During her artist talk Anna did read out fragments of several stories. She showed to be an expert in writing about heavy subjects in a light, humorist way. And she was highly productive during her residency: she wrote 160 pages.

Stefano Falcone, jazz pianist from Naples, Italy, had a residency with us in 2021. He composed a series of beautiful works, all dedicated to OBRAS. They were first brought to stage on the piano festival of Lecce, Italy in September 2022, and later published on SoundCloud. A beautiful teaser is on YouTube (see below). It gives a sample of his music, but also indicates how his music inspired fellow residents. A CD entitled OBRAS is released (www.worklabel.it) and distributed (www.IRD.it). The CD includes a flyer with texts by several residents. The CD cover was designed by Tim Gleason.

In 2021 and 2022, Sherry Wiggins (USA) and Luís Branco (Portugal) made an incredible body of work, both at OBRAS-Portugal and OBRAS-Holland, for “The Heroines” an ongoing project in which Luis is photographing Sherry while she is recreating historical or mythical figures: Eve, Salome and Judith and others. There is a feminist concept behind the work. Fifteen photos in large scale format are currently shown as part of the exhibition “Exit Paradise” at the contemporary art gallery Seidel City in Boulder, USA.  The show ran until 30 April.

Charlie Wührer (UK, living in Berlin) is a queer writer and literary translator. Her writing can be found in literary journals, in writing competition anthologies, spoken on audio porn apps, dramatically read at events in Berlin, and on surtitle screens in theatres across Germany. At OBRAS, she is working on her first novel, which is about a young woman’s journey from people-pleaser to "feminist killjoy," able to express and act on rage, and to rewrite old narratives. She does this with the help of a witchy "rage mentor“ who sets her challenges.
Charlie has also been inspired, partially by an epic storm at OBRAS in the evening of 4 June, to write poetry, and is determined to climb the writing tree before she leaves.
More info: charlotte-wuehrer.com

Janice Deary is a South-African visual artist, living and working in Scotland. She studied philosophy before completing her art education. Janice specialised in charcoal drawing.
At OBRAS she made four 150x110 cm drawings of wild oat, growing abundantly around the residency. The four drawings show an impression of oat in the four seasons.  
Janice is deeply inspired by East-Asian art and has a strong interest in the basic principles of Daoïsme. Dao includes Emptiness, Form, Movement and Rest, with which it creates orderly patterns in the chaos. It reflects the belief that change is the most basic character of things. The Wild Oats series follows these basic Daoïstic principles. More info: janicedeary.com

Ingrid Simons (Holland) is specialised in painting, graphic art and ceramics. Since 2010 she has worked at OBRAS annually. Looking back, this has been an essential turning point in her 25-year career. She connected to the Alentejo: its mistic nature and starry nights, but also its traditional ceramics and the abandoned marble quarries.
In 2023 she started her residency with her 8th Portuguese solo exhibition (see elsewhere on this page). During her residency she made a new series of paintings and experimented with site specific performances. In one she was painting on a 5-meter paper rol, deep down in a marble quarry. She had collaborations with José Rodrigues (essay), Pedro Cabral (film), Luís Rosado (ceramics) and fellow residents (multi media).
More info: www.ingridsimons.com , insta: simons.ingrid

Peter Van Huffel (Canada, living in Berlin) is a saxophonist and composer. At OBRAS he was exploring the combination of saxophone with effect pedals and live electronics processing. He brought his baritone saxophone for this. He was learning new music software to achieve superior sound, and made extensive recordings in a variety of resonant spaces; in a marble quarry and in nature around OBRAS. But he has developed his deepest interest in the extremely resonant sound in the fortress of Evoramonte. He has visited the fortress on numerous occasions, during which he has been recording and filming his work with the intention of developing a full-length performance video.
Peter is working with several bands and has released some 20 albums in 2012
More info: petervanhuffel.com gorillamaskmusic.com

Angelique Delcroix (France) is a multi-talent. She was doing some graphical designing as part of her pay job (she runs a small publishing house), but most of her time she spent on exploring details of her surroundings and bringing her observations into a conceptual setting. She has a special interest in fragility; not as a weakness, but as a strength and as a trigger for creativity. She collected materials from nature (dead branches for instance), the local flee market (jute sacks) and her own recycle stuff (dry tea bags), all having earthy colors in common, and made drawings, small collages and embroidery works with it. It all seem to tell about “powerful fragility”.     

Mario Moroni (Italy, living in USA) was working on a very long poem (40 pages), with the classical tragedy of Medea as a starting point. Mario considered that the role of Medea can be interpreted in many ways. So, in his poem Medea is mentioned in plural. And, by bringing Medea into the contemporary he decided that his tragedy will get an open end. Mario managed to finalise the poem in first draft. It will become part of a larger volume that will be published in Italian in 2024.
A specialty of Mario is poetry performance. Several times during his residency he presented his poems, accompanied with slides, videos, life music of Beate Schnaithmann (on cello and percussion with marble slabs) and his own theatrical gestures.  

Bianca Ludewig (Germany, living in Austria) came to work on an English version of her PhD thesis. It is about transmedia festivals, a phenomenon that appeared in the early 1990th. It combines electronic music with other art forms. Bianca investigated the relation between art and societal developments. The English version is meant to be informative to a broader audience than just the scientific scene. Bianca worked day and night and managed to finish 80% of the manuscript. In between she found time to collect sounds for a soundscape on marble sawing machines. 

On 25 June we had a very special Open Studio: Waves of Brain, Hand and Heat. The slide show gives an impression. The title refers to the input of writers, visual artists and a musician in the middle of a heatwave (we did it in the morning, to avoid the 40+ 0C of the afternoon).
Participants were Ingrid Simons (visual artist, Holland), Juliana Stankiewicz (visual artist, USA), Dan Ayres (writer, UK (living in Germany)), Andrea Brasch (game designer, Denmark (living in Portugal)), Peter van Huffel (musician, Canada (living in Germany)), Jonaki Ray (poet, India), Charlie Wührer (writer, UK (living in Germany)) and Janice Deary (visual artist, South Africa (living in the UK)). All participants wrote a statement about what they were working on during their residency (see elsewhere on this page).
Together with some illustrative images these statements are also in a brochure that is available on demand.
Both the participants and the visitors were excited on the presentations and interactions during the Open Studio.
Special guest was José Rodrigues dos Santos (Portugal), who wrote a poetic essay on three paintings of Ingrid. He recited this essay in front of these paintings and accompanied by Peter on baritone saxophone. We visited the studios of Juliana and Ingrid, and Dan and Charlie were reading some poems in the coolness of the corridor. Andrea showed two games in the intimacy of an apartment, and Peter gave a beautiful small solo concert in the patio. Ingrid showed a video of her painting in a marble quarry.  Works of Jonaki and Janice (who had left already) were shown in the corridor.

Jonaki Ray is a poet and writer based in New Delhi, India. Her work won several prestigious awards and has been published in Poetry, Poetry Wales, The Rumpus, Indian Literature, and elsewhere. She is the author of a poetry collection, Firefly Memories (see below for an excerpt) and Lessons in Bending (Sundress Publications, USA). At OBRAS, she was getting the mental space to prepare for the RHOME conference (22, 23 June; University of Lisbon). She also started working on a hybrid pamphlet, comprising poetry and photographs. More info: jonakiray.com
 
Talk about trees because they, like children,
Still believe in the sky. Still grow. Still love.
Talk about tress because some day
We will talk about the unspeakable.
 
Excerpt from Talk about Trees
(a poem in Firefly Memories (2023) ISBN 978-81-955826-3-1.

Dan Ayres (UK, living in berlin) is a writer and storyteller. In the scope of the Open Studio of 25 June he introduced himself: 
“For the last few years I have written screenplays, including a script about a gaggle of queers and their allies who run a rambunctious funeral parlour in Plymouth called The Fundertakers. I worked on this at Obras last year and was then invited to pitch it at the Birmingham Film and TV Market.
This time round I have been working on another project - KILL ALL BILLIONAIRES - imagining a Global French revolution / battle royale scenario in which financial rewards are offered for every dead billionaire! (It's more cheerful than it sounds). I have also been bombarded by wasps and horse flies on the railway line and lived to tell the tale.”
More info on Dan is on Dan Ayres

Juliana Stankiewicz (USA) studied painting and film at Syracuse University in Florence, Italy and New York. Her work is centred on identity and varies in materials ranging from oil painting, photography, and hand-crafted 3D forms. 
During her time at OBRAS she was working on her current series, Woman as Object, which focuses on the subject of women existing without agency, serving merely as parts. Through photography and painting, she incorporates portions of her body with common still life accoutrements. Given the angles and close up of her body, the result is beautiful but also often indecipherable, rendering each shape as an item, detached from the greater self.
More info:julianastankiewicz.com , insta: julianas.artwork

Andrea Brasch (Denmark, Portugal) is a digital artist who works with computer games. The work often takes its starting point in the physical body, and from this framework deals with themes as gender, feminism, and human nature. In the nurturing and tranquil environment of OBRAS, Andrea was working on her new game 'The Horticulturists'. In this game you play the dramatic storylines of four friends in their early 30ties, all in a quarter-life crisis. This game deals with individual perceptions of reality and with our relationship with plants.
More info: andreabrasch.com

In July OBRAS was closed, but OBRAS-Portugal became the meeting point for five residents who combined house caring with artwork: Nico Huijbregts (multi media), Yvonne Halfens (sculptor), Peter Bremer (visual artist), Nora van Dam (actress) and Sybille Weissweiler (painter).

Nico Huijbregts did the finishing touch of his novel about a bridge that gets adrift, being a metaphor for a person who gets lost and is seeking a new anchor in his life. Nico also worked on it earlier this year at OBRAS-Holland (see elsewhere on this page).  He experienced a common issue among writers: that a finishing touch can be laborious and fluid.

Yvonne Halfens made lots of intriguing drawings, ceramic figurines and tiles. Some were fired by the Sisters Flor, the local potters with who Yvonne established a both professional and personal contact. The work of Yvonne shows dreamy creatures with an expression that leaves lots freedom for interpretation: are they sad or in a good mood? Are they suffering due their imperfection or do they take it for granted?

Theatre-maker Nora van Dam tried out a fragment from her autofictional collection of texts, titled 'Roemloos' ('Inglouriously'). They tell about an unexceptional past that needs new meaning in the present. It resulted in the clip: 'Er iets van maken' ('Making it special'). It is a preliminary study for a personal storytelling performance. You can watch it, subtitled in English, at dramaplaats.nl.

Peter Bremer made a small series of beautiful abstract paintings and was sparring with Nora on the personalities in her stories.

Sibylla Weisweiler (Germany) has a unique style of painting. It has similarity with pointillism, but she paints with square pixels, suggesting super-enlarged digital images.
Sibylla often paints urban landscapes from a birds-eye viewpoint, but this time she took the wall of a marble quarry as a starting point. It resulted in a work that has to be seen from two distances: a few meters away it is a clearly an industrial landscape, but going nearer it changes into an abstract composition of dancing dots. Peter van Bremen made a small series of beautiful abstract paintings and was sparring with Nora on de personalities in her stories.

Ingrid Simons, annual resident at OBRAS since 2010, had an exhibition in the National Museum of Évora. The title Onde cresce a esteva – A luz do Alentejo [Where the rock-rose grows – The light of Alentejo] indicates that it is an homage to the nature and the skies of Alentejo. The exhibition was from 22 April until 29 May.

The exhibition was part of her residency that is from 14 April until 27 June. In this period the artist also gave a ceramics workshop, together with Luis Rosado, in Redondo.   

In October 2022 Alëna Koroleva (Russia, living in Canada) was collecting sounds from around our residency: whispering night birds, pigs fighting for food, the echo’s in a marble quarry … (see page 2022 for more). In addition, she recorded sounds in Lisbon. With all this she created a sound composition of 57 minutes. It took her 3,5 months. Now it is available for streaming and download on SoundCloud.  
On April 16 was released at Framework Radio which broadcasts on 15 radio stations in Europe and US.

In OBRAS Holland Yvonne Halfens was working on an xxl head made of gypsum blocks, wrapped in a Kelvin-blue rope. It was only just small enough to leave the place of creation: the veranda of the house. It left OBRAS- Holland for to be exhibited as part of Over de Dijk, a sculpture route in Kattendijke, in the South West of Holland, until 2023. From the riverside it is now overlooking the polder, giving all freedom to the viewer: is it a meditating Buddhist monk?, a farmer stuck in the swamp?, an alien tourist?, …. Yvonne herself has another suggestion. The title is De Heilige Brandaan, which refers to an 6th century Irish monk, explorer and navigator. His life became inspiration for many legends in later ages. In the 12th century the story was told about the Saint Brandaan, who made a nine-years journey in an attempt to find the truth about an ancient book. His journey is full of adventures, miracles and revelations, which made him realize that God's creation is incomprehensible and that He is generous in showing mercy.

Nico Huijbregts was also working in OBRAS Holland. He continued working on his novel about a bridge that gets adrift. This disaster triggers disorientation of an artist, a restaurant owner and a linguist, who try to find a new structure in their live, may be with the help of crime, may be by embracing emptiness.

Reinekke Lengelle (Canada) had a residency at OBRAS Holland, as part of her sabbatical. She wrote about living for a full year as a minimalist. It will be published in 2024 as a chapter in a book called “Meaningful Journeys: Autoethnographies of Quest and Identity Transformation” edited by Alec Grant and Elizabeth Lloyd-Parkes.
Reinekke also wrote a beautiful poem integrated in a small art object (co-created with Annita van Betuw, a local artist). The poem tells about her stay and her memories of her Dutch grandparents. But reads also as a contemplation on the dependency of each other and on the passing of time.

In early spring two local artist-friends lent part of our house. Antonio Tavares was painting a lot. And he took the opportunity to invite art-and-nature lovers for a one-day workshop in which two painting sessions are combined with a nature walk and a super healthy lunch. His first students were excited.  .
And Leonor Vanançio got an open studio in our Big Hall for her students from Estremoz, who she is giving drawing lessons. It was a great success with a proud teacher and students, and a warm, social atmosphere.

Abby McGuane (Canada) came to OBRAS to work in Portuguese marble. We made a video impression. More about Abby and her project is on the residents 2022 page.

Also Good To Know:

On 7 December 2022 the EC decided that Evora will become the European Capital of Culture in 2027.  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.  
From 2025 onwards, we have the intention to focus on special projects, rather than on residencies. In that scope we are currently considering how to participate. Suggestions are welcome. 

Charlie Wührer is a gifted writer (see also newsletter), but also a highly experienced half-marathon runner. On 20 June she ran the steep track from Marmeleira to the fortress of Evoramonte and back in 42 minutes and 20 seconds. This is all-time, gender-neutral  record, that is probably hard to beat. The time of the previous record: of 2016 by the American Poet George Moore, has been pulverized by Charlie. 

We made a video  impression of the 2022 residencies.

Some more news about OBRAS
 
We did write an annual report on the OBRAS activities in 2022. It is available on request.

In 2021 Foundation OBRAS made a kind of a new start. It got two new board members, it updated its statutes and the House Governance Rules, and adopted the newest regulations and codes on Governance Culture, on Fair Practice and on Diversity & Inclusion.