MASA SENICIC (SI): Writing
Maša Seničić (Belgrade, 1990) is devoted to multiple forms of text in her work: as a poet, a researcher, an essayist and an editor. Seničić is the co-programmer of Brave Balkans (Belgrade Auteur Film Festival), the program director of Filmkultura – association dedicated to informal education of youth in audiovisual culture, while she is also pursuing her PhD thesis at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, where she completed her BA and MA studies. As an author and an editor, she was part of numerous media outlets and self-initiated or institutional art publications, and in the role of a moderator, coordinator and/or mentor she participated in various local and international programs, workshops and events, primarily in the field of film and literature. Seničić is focused on interdisciplinary researches rooted in diverse textual and and/or archival materials, built within an experimental framework; some of them were framed as independent exhibitions (The Golden Coast) or as part of collective exhibitions/workshops/publications (The Cultural Center of Belgrade, Institute of Network Cultures, Museum of Yugoslavia...). Her prose, poetry and essays can be found in anthologies, collections and online/offline magazines in the ex-Yugoslav region and across Europe. She published two books of poetry: Okean (2015, awarded the Mladi Dis prize) and Povremena poput vikend-naselja, (2019, awarded the Dušan Vasiljev prize). As a freelance author, Seničić contributes to and initiates multilayered collaborations and publishing ventures. She is predominantly interested in books: as texts, as spaces and as printed objects.
Remaining focused on my previous practice, based on the poetics of space, I would like to explore Lanzarote’s waterways, tackling the environmental anxiety and the destruction of natural resources. My aim is to write an experimental interdisciplinary piece, consisting of both intimate and documentary / archival materials. I wish to produce a text that is itself fluid, reflecting on the local relationships to oceans, pools, ravines and reservoirs. This will result in a poetic publication, a chapbook, ideally fully developed and possibly even printed / bound on the island. Hoping to present it in a performative / site-specific manner I will particularly engage with the landscape and look for ways to make it interwoven with the text. A working title for the project is Ravenous Ravines.
HANA WALKER-BROWN (UK): Storytelling & activism
Hana Walker-Brown is a multi-award-winning and critically acclaimed interdisciplinary storyteller, activist, and educator whose work lives at the intersection of craft and conscience, balancing journalistic rigor with deep empathy to illuminate the human experience. For Hana, storytelling is a radical act of attention—an invitation to witness, to hold space, and to imagine change. Guided by curiosity and a refusal to be confined to a single category, her practice spans across sound, film, books, and installations. Her work has been recognised by Amnesty International, the Rose d’Or, Peabody, The British Podcast Awards, and the Webby Awards, and has been commissioned by Audible, the BBC, The Guardian, National Geographic, Sony Music, Ventureland, Warner Brothers, and beyond.
She wrote and narrated the New York Times bestselling audiobook The Beautiful Brain, an investigation into Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), and its follow-up A Delicate Game(2022), a searing exploration of brain injury in sport and beyond—now taught on the Neuroscience curriculum at the University of Texas. Beyond her creative output, Hana uses storytelling as a force for good. She has spoken at 10 Downing Street, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Cheltenham Festivals, and Freeda Media, and she lectures in Journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London. She also facilitates workshops in Young Adult and Women’s Prisons, harnessing creativity as a tool to help participants regain confidence and agency.
In 2023, Hana was recognised as one of the UK’s Top 50 Influential Neurodivergent Women, and in 2024 she was selected for the prestigious D&AD Creative Equals programme. At the heart of it all, her work asks not just how we tell stories—but how stories can hold us, heal us, and help us leave the world a little better than we found it.
Latest work “In Pieces”
Compassion Coaching
As a trauma informed certified compassion coach, Hana supports people in finding gentler, more sustainable ways to create, live, and lead. Her coaching weaves together her background as an award-winning storyteller and educator with holistic practices rooted in her experience as a 500hr trained yoga and meditation teacher.
Having navigated burnout and grief herself, she understands the courage it takes to pause, to listen inward, and to rebuild. She offers space for clients to reconnect with their voice, body, and their story—integrating creativity with compassionate practices that restore balance. Whether you’re seeking clarity, healing, or renewed direction, her approach is grounded in presence, deep listening, and the belief that transformation begins when we learn to move slower, grow softer, and honour the whole of who we are.
Water has always been a threshold—a space between worlds, where transformation unfolds. But what if the lakes, rivers, and seas we surrender ourselves to are not merely passive bodies, but keepers of our grief, our burdens, our memories?
Loosely structured like a dive; descent, immersion, and resurfacing, I want to create a sound-rich installation piece; a meditation on the human capacity to surrender.
Through lyrical storytelling, first-hand accounts, and evocative sound design, I delve into the ancient and deeply personal relationship between water and memory.
From folklore that speaks of water as a vessel of lost souls to the modern-day rituals of those seeking solace, this piece unearths the stories that sink beneath the surface and explores the invisible echoes of human experience that water holds.
I meet a freediver who silently sinks into the darkest depths to relieve physical pain, an asylum seeker recalls an ocean crossing, while a poet reflects on the symbolism of water, and why we return from it changed.
This piece will be a journey into the unseen currents that connect us —to ourselves, to each other, to the past and Water as more than just an element—but as a witness, a vessel, a force that remembers, home.
JUSTINE BOURGEUS - TSAR B (BE): Music
Justine Bourgeus (°1994) is a songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. She has been a part of the local scene since the age of 14 and started releasing music under the moniker Tsar B in 2015. Writing, recording and producing most of her compositions out of her place in Brussels, her work has been applauded by the likes of BBC Radio 1, The Fader, Les Inrocks & more.
ZENO AERTS (BE): Pigments and painting
In his artistic practice Zeno Aerts investigates the relationship between colour, materiality, and locality. By working with organic pigments from the land and shifting the scope from the distant to our direct surroundings, he opens the possibility for new ways to experience our environment and our place in it. As an environmentally engaged designer/ artist, Zeno has developed a philosophical sensibility to both existential human subjects and the natural world. Because he comes from a design oriented background, he can rely on a broad material knowledge to push for unique results in his art.
CONSTANT FAZILLEAU (FR): Ceramics
Constant Fazilleau is a ceramic artist based in Paris. His practice has developed through personal exploration, a long-term residency at La Mine, and nomadic research. Working exclusively by hand, mainly with coil-building techniques, he creates both functional and sculptural pieces, distinguished by their refined finish and sensitive relationship to the material.
His current research unfolds through the concept of “Domestic Theatre”, a reflection on the silent poetry of everyday objects and their performative presence. In Lanzarote, he continues this series by addressing the issue of water scarcity, engaging directly with the island’s landscape, arid climate, and the essential gestures of hand-building.
His work moves between raw expression and precise form, sometimes colorful, sometimes somber — always charged with a tactile, emotional, and imaginative energy.
GUGLIELMO DALVIT (IT/FR): Music
Originally from northern Italy and now based in Paris, Guglielmo Dalvit began his musical journey with classical training in cello and saxophone. Over time, however, his passion shifted from performance to composition, a pursuit that captured his interest from an early age.
His work often features spontaneous vocal snippets from real telephone conversations, adding a raw, human element to his soundscapes. Gugliemo also collaborates with studio musicians from around the globe, enriching his compositions with diverse musical influences.
DISCOGRAPHY
A New Day, 2020
First electro-acoustic release. A New Day record features spontaneous vocal messages received from friends, used as voice-overs. The realness of true conversations adds a personal, yet cinematic touch to the music.
Plus Fort Que Moi, 2021
Original motion picture soundtrack for a short movie by Constant Fazilleau, selected at Vienna International Film Award 2022.
Piano Tapes, 2021
Piano compositions, interpreted by Italian pianist and orchestra conductor Simone Sarno.
Full Moon, 2023
Piano composition, interpreted by Fatjon Zefi.
Il Sole La Notte, 2023
Cinematic composition for trumpet solo, interpreted by Spanish trumpetist Josue Garcia.
Confusing Feeling, 2024
Instrumental electronic pop-rock release.
THEOPHILUS (UK/US): Music
Antje Lang and Chris Roche are joining us as Theophilus, their musical collaboration that explores how art can foster genuine human connection in an increasingly fragmented world. Having observed systemic challenges through their work at the intersection of climate change, finance, and placemaking, they believe nurturing community and shared humanity offers the most meaningful path forward.
During their residency at Hektor, Theophilus will develop compositions exploring themes of vulnerability, genuine exchange, and the rediscovery of connection. Their music will draw from conversations, observations, and the rhythms of daily life at the farm.
As a solo artist, Antje uses music to work through complex questions—sometimes finding answers, sometimes better articulating questions she didn't know she had. Her album Notes to a Doctor examined how we exist meaningfully in a world that leaves little space for critical thought in the face of mortality and uncertainty.
Their work moves between intimate questioning and expansive connection, sometimes vulnerable, sometimes resolute—always charged with a sincere search for authentic human exchange through sound.
Find them at:
GIORGIA LENZI (IT): Photography
Giorgia Lenzi (b.1994, Italy) is a photographer with an interest in telling stories through an intimate and diaristic approach. Her imagery is guided by poetry and focuses on nature and the possibility of the landscape to explore memories and create emotional reflections.
She also works with archival photography, cyanotype and collage.
CELINA J. AUGUST (GE/UK): CERAMICS
Celina J. August (b. Celina Schumm, 1996, Germany) is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in London and Berlin. Her body of work consists of paintings, sculpture and tattooing, guided by an intuitive, material-driven process.
In both ceramics and painting, the piece evolves on its own, telling her what it wants to become. It’s about both removing and adding, allowing the creation to emerge naturally and create biomorphic forms. Her works resemble otherworldly forms and shapes and are based on a continuous exploration, which are influenced by different places.
Having lived across Europe and Latin America, August’s frequent moves have shaped her practice and style. The themes of transformation and the unknown are central to her work, serving as a reminder that every captured moment is part of a larger, interconnected experience.
ELISE GUILLEN (US): Mixed Media
Elise Guillen is a multidisciplinary artist from Massachusetts. She received her BFA in Illustration in 2016. Two years later, her love for analog storytelling led to a solo cross country move to Portland, Oregon. Here, Elise began working on stop-motion animated productions for clients such as Netflix and Nickelodeon, while also delving deeper into her personal mixed media collage practice.
The collage process of assembling and re-contextualizing disparate elements into new meaning is a synthesis that mirrors her day job in stop-motion, meticulously piecing together a larger narrative frame by frame. Elise’s collage work examines tension between structure and spontaneity, a curiosity for the human figure, intuition, and sustainability. Her work has been recognized by Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, and Creative Quarterly.
Today, I’m approaching my collage practice with a depth I have not previously encountered in my work. In response to the ongoing global climate crisis, I am increasingly mindful of my environmental impact and the sustainability of my creative process. Over the past decade, I have accumulated a collection of paper scraps, magazines, and ephemera, minimizing the need to purchase new collage materials. However, as I occasionally find myself running out of base materials like mixed media paper or bristol board, I’ve been experimenting with the process of handmade paper production as a more sustainable alternative.
This study took a more personal form earlier this year when I found myself with an excess of clothing too worn to donate. Thinking about waste reduction and the spirit of reimagining within collage, I cut up one of my tattered tank tops and threw it in a blender. I created a fibrous pulp which I then transformed into handmade paper that I collaged onto. I continued this process with jeans, socks, underwear – all of which are on view (containing deckled edges) within my portfolio. Minimizing waste while incorporating this craft into my process has ignited an innovative flame within me. The origin of the paper fibers adds an additional layer of narrative to the work, making each piece truly analog and further connecting my practice to a broader environmental consciousness.
Meditating on the origin of the clothing fibers themselves, I trace their roots back to the land. During my time at Hektor, I plan to explore the process of making handmade paper from a variety of plant fibers sourced from the grounds at the farm and the wider Lanzarote landscape. I aim to challenge my own conceptions of what’s possible, transforming dry grasses and leaves into the tangible pages of a story, quite literally regenerating the land into art.
The body of work I create at Hektor will serve as the foundation for an explorative series of what 100% fully sustainable collage can look like. This residency will allow me to reassess the ecological mission behind the collage practice I have developed over the past decade. I will also have the chance to build invaluable relationships with other like-minded artists whose work engages with environmental themes, further enriching my network and creative perspective. In line with Hektor’s values, my aim is to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about sustainability and the connection between art and the environment that Hektor has fostered for years. This time spent on Lazarote will not only broaden and diversify my skill set and portfolio, but it will also enable me to continue exploring this exciting new direction in my work.
SONIA RENTSCH (US): Still life
Sonia is a Still Life Artist with a keen eye for detail and a talent for the idiosyncratic.
She has become well known for creating iconic imagery questioning the viewer to reassess the pictures placed before them.
Her Harm Less series, a selection of weapons created from plant life has been widely publicized and became synonymous with the hopeful ideology of a world without violence.
Differentiating her work from the wider market is an innate intellectual element ingrained in her creations. Via a depth of thought intrinsic to the compositions or simply the skill involved in the crafting of the objects the imagery is recognizable as distinctly hers.
Her work encompasses all forms of materials and objects forged with an attention to detail often minute.
Crossing the borders between both art and industry her imagery is highly sort as collectable items but also commissioned by corporate entities to create pictorial narratives that encapsulate the intrinsic nature of a brand or idea.
With a background stemming from a degree in Industrial Design, Sonia’s work has a foundation in both design and engineering. She is a qualified welder, founder and model maker. Post her studies she spent 10 years designing large scale environments for Fashion Festival Runways, luxury interiors for events and retail, along with smaller lifestyle products for the mass market including tap ware, lighting, home wares and fixtures. She then moved into film, designing sets before assisting German Artist, Sarah Illenberger in Berlin. On returning to Australia she forged a unique path of her own building a portfolio that has garnered her worldwide attention before relocating to New York where her clients have included Hermes, Lanvin, Loewe, MoMA, Ikea, The New Yorker, Tiffany, Nike and The Wall Street Journal.
In a clear moment of united world confusion – how do we ground ourselves?
Where do we go to seek solace, how do we make statements without raising our voices?
I believe strength and unity comes from the small things - the conversation you have with a stranger while walking your dog, the fruit and vegetables you grow and share with a neighbour.
In my art practice and my daily life, I seek for beauty where classically speaking others may not see it, I paint pictures formed of found things and narrated by light. I speak in a visual language.
The Irish philosopher John O’Donohue says we often make the mistake of equating time with space, but time is unshaped – that the imagination we bring to the new dawn will surprise and bless us with new things.
My time in Lanzarote will be spent building connections, with locals, with the land, and with found materials. From these I aim to build a collection of work that speaks of place and time – simple reminders of being good, of being kind, of growth - a statement painted without words, built from the gifts of an island.
CHRISTOPHE BOULANGER (FR): Drawing
A multidisciplinary artist, Christophe eagerly embraces life with his quick and vibrant strokes. These sketches dance in notebooks that, as they pile up over the years, form a leaning tower.
From these sketches are born engravings, monotypes, ceramics, paintings, sculptures, photographs, pieces of solid wood... An insatiable explorer of materials, he shapes them with the supple and uninhibited gesture of someone discovering them. And his sketches come to life, like his delicate ink lines. A serial score where each motif is unique.
Each exploration is a chapter written in the flow of material and gesture, a palpable tension between the childlike joy of breaking new ground and the inner demands of the adult. The choreography of letting go is a tumultuous, joyful, and painful tango. This quest falls in love with obsolete techniques like Sèvres porcelain, metalworking, pyrography, and basketry.
His latest creations explore wood in a tightrope walk between furniture and art sculpture. Always, the original sketch appears as a watermark. It inspires the curves and rhythms, the sensuality, the modeling. Then are born forms that are just right, surprising, intriguing, sometimes burlesque, but of undeniable beauty. A mystique that recalls the trembling universes of Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, where poetry vies with function.
Beyond any label, there is in Christophe and his works a Don Quixote-like flourish, a dream of freedom escaped from a childhood woven with conventions, an incredulous hold-up where yet the truth is revealed. In this kingdom, nothing is usurped. It is a lesson repeated where always, he awakens amazed. For our greatest delight...
I would like to take advantage of this residence to work mainly on drawing (ink, pastel, charcoal, colors).And develop work initiated in recent years on the “botanical imagination”. Having already had a short stay in Lanzarote, I saw that in the face of the mineral environment the flora developed treasures of inspiration.
PAULA KUEHN (DE): Painting
My project explores the fusion of physical and digital elements to create a multimedia experience. I will incorporate textile components alongside 3D and mixed reality technologies, drawing inspiration from Lanzarote's unique landscapes, structures, and natural features to develop a dynamic work that bridges the digital and physical worlds.
JULIAN BENDER (GE): Multimedia
Julian Bender (born 1989 in Mainz) is a communication designer and creative, based in Mannheim, Germany. He moved to the city in 2009 to study Communication Design and has been living and working there ever since – with a brief but inspiring stint at Zoo Magazine in Amsterdam in 2012. He loves textures, shapes, colors, bass, good melodies and beautifully crafted objects. Above all, he is passionate about creating spaces for connection, shared experiences, and ideas.
In 2015, Julian founded Granada Hills (The Studio), where he collaborates with a range of clients from the cultural sector – mostly art, music and theatre. Especially noteworthy is his long-term collaboration with GNYP Gallery Berlin/Antwerp, bringing several projects and artist books to life. He occasionally dives into free projects – like teaming up with Stockholm-based The Ninevites for a series of custom handwoven rugs or small exhibitions such as “Wheel of Emotion” with Thomas Wolf at Büro Brutal in 2022.
Outside the studio, Julian co-runs KIOSK, a neighborhood café and bar that doubles as a cozy event space for concerts and gatherings. He’s also active in the electronic music scene as a DJ and promoter. For years, he’s been hosting the club night PALS, shining a spotlight on house music and queer DJs and producers. You’ll find him behind the decks at Disco Zwei, where he holds a residency at one of Mannheim’s most iconic clubs.
Check on Instagram, more Instagram and soundcloud.
Rug collab with The Inevitables
