Artist Residency at Tinhela610

Holly Niemela
Jun 2
2 min read

A Return to the Essentials

Artist Residency | 10–17 August 2025 in theTrás-os-Montes region of Northern Portugal

In the quiet wilderness of Tinhela610, where stone and sun speak the old language of time, we open our doors—not just to artists, but to alchemists of the essential. This August, five luminous voices will gather under our roof to create, to question, and to return.

Why do we do this?

Because the world is loud, and beauty needs a place to whisper again. Because art, at its root, is a form of listening—to the land, to the self, to the stranger. Because we believe that when international voices meet local silence, something rare is born: a cultural pollen carried across borders, taking root in unexpected soil.

This residency is not about productivity. It is about presence. It is about pausing in the stillness of a Portuguese summer to hear what wants to emerge.

At Tinhela610, we move slowly.We sleep deeply.We bathe in rivers and write in notebooks.We share meals as gestures of art.We make space—for nuance, for intimacy, for experiment.

And so we welcome:

Adèle Yon, who writes with a pen dipped in memory and moonlight, inviting us into the tender politics of silence.
Alice Artur, who cooks with ceremony, crafting food that feeds not just the body but the soul’s longing for belonging.
João Pedro Soares, who draws from the landscapes and rhythms of rural Portugal, both poetic and political, exploring the entanglements between human and more-than-human worlds.
Justine Mothe, Queendom of Illusion, conjurer of costume and transformation, who teaches us to dance at the edge of myth and embodiment.
Aurélien Hamm, Saint DX, who composes soundscapes that feel like dreams remembered just before waking—fragile, truthful, and full of ache.

This is not just a residency. It is a reverence. A return to what matters. A week of shared time, shared silence, shared magic.

And on 17 August, you—our community—are invited. Not to a performance, but to a rencontre : an unscripted encounter with these artists and what they have found here.

It may be a song.

It may be bread.

It may be a gesture.

It will certainly be a moment.

More soon.

For now, we prepare the house. We gather wood, wash the linens, open the windows.We make space for art to breathe.

—The Tinhela610 Collective Where we sleep, bathe, nourish, and move—in harmony with the earth.