In September, we are thrilled to welcome Joanna Wróblewska and Melanie Holland to the residency.

Joanna Wróblewska is a visual artist and expressive arts therapist working between Poland and Belgium. She holds an MA in Intermedia Graphic Design, a PhD in Visual Arts, and an MA in Expressive Arts Therapy with a Minor in Psychology. Joanna works primarily with individuals who have experienced migration in any form, as well as those searching for a sense of belonging. Her practice is rooted in gentle, trauma-informed, and cross-cultural approaches that weave together various art-based tools, somatic awareness, guided imagery, and deep relaxation techniques. Joanna’s creative and therapeutic work is deeply inspired by the natural world, especially the quiet presence of greenery and forests. Through her connection with nature, she finds both artistic expression and the capacity to hold restorative, compassionate spaces for people navigating cultural transitions, loneliness, guilt, doubt, sadness, and the many emotions that accompany moments of change and transformation.

Melanie Holland is a collage artist and printmaker whose work explores the beautiful unease of the in-between. Her collages and prints lean into history, religion and folktales, and the pairing of the familiar and uncanny. She is interested in the intersections between memory and nostalgia, and loves the unusual connections that emerge when images are pieced together. During her residency in Latvia, she will be exploring “homes away from home” – the sense of belonging (or not) in the physical places we occupy, and the larger idea of what “home” means in liminal spaces and time. Melanie resides in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the US.

The residency is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia.