CROSSING WATER

Sculpture, installation, phtography, drawing, painting (Collaborative project)

Since 2023

Crossing Water brings together four artists and a curator who first met in 2023 during the ecological residency Joya:AiR in the Sierra María los Velez, Almeria, Spain:

Lindsey Creel Cherry (Texas), Ima Montoya (Bilbao/Barcelona), Aileen Harvey (London/Lisboa),  Anna Franke (Berlin/A Coruña), Coordinated by Stefania Fenu (Sardinia/Madrid)

The residency emphasizes the confluence of art and ecology. It is located in a renovated, off-grid cortijada, a traditional Andalusian farmhouse surrounded on all sides by an arid, clay-like landscape. Water, in such an extremely dry region of Spain, is considered almost sacred in order to keep flora and fauna alive. The landscape encouraged the artists to contemplate the different forms and uses of water.

The collective project explores water as a state of transition — a natural and symbolic boundary, and a connective medium between bodies, materials, and places.

After a year of online collaboration, the group reunited in 2024 at the Ras de Terra residency in the Sierra de Gredos, Extremadura, responding to the mountainous terrain and its powerful water formations and the dusty yellow earth of the former tobacco fields. This residency phase culminated in a group exhibition at the Ras de Terra Gallery, where the works entered into dialogue with the surrounding terrain. Following its debut in Spain, Crossing Water continued to expand across the Atlantic with exhibitions in Texas, USA.