This season, the tranquil mountain retreat of La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel in the village of Deià, Mallorca, has announced a new partnership with LOEWE FOUNDATION to launch a renewed edition of its Artist Residencia programme. The initiative will offer artists from the acclaimed pool of LOEWE Craft Prize finalists and alumni the opportunity to live and create amid the Mediterranean landscape and the dramatic Tramuntana mountains, recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The collaboration arrives as the LOEWE FOUNDATION marks the tenth anniversary of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize — a distinction that, over the years, has become one of the most significant platforms for contemporary craft worldwide. Not merely because it celebrates craftsmanship itself, but because it continues to expand the language of craft into a dialogue between material, memory, and contemporary culture.
For the inaugural year of the programme, three artists have been selected: Kaori Juzu, a jewellery artist from Japan; Deirdre McLoughlin, a ceramic artist from Ireland; and Dahye Jeong, a textile artist from South Korea. Each artist will undertake a two-month residency, developing new works inspired by Mallorca’s light, landscape, and unhurried rhythm of life.
What makes the programme particularly compelling is that it avoids the sense of distance or formality often associated with traditional artist residencies. Instead, it places emphasis on human connection. Hotel guests will have the opportunity to meet the artists, engage in conversation, and witness their creative process firsthand through intimate breakfast sessions and informal cocktail gatherings designed to encourage natural interaction rather than create a divide between artist and audience.
The sentiment is echoed by Sheila Loewe, who notes that the relationship between material, environment, and process becomes far more tangible when artists are able to work within a place itself. Perhaps this is why Deià has long attracted generations of creative figures, from Joan Miró to Frédéric Chopin and Robert Graves. It is not merely a destination for retreat, but a landscape that encourages people to slow down enough to notice the subtleties of light, wind, shadow, and texture.
Over the years, La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel has maintained a close relationship with the art world through collaborations with international galleries and institutions, while also housing a permanent collection of more than 800 artworks displayed throughout the property as though they belong naturally to the surrounding landscape, rather than existing simply as decoration.
At a time when many brands speak of “craftsmanship” through the language of marketing, the collaboration between La Residencia and LOEWE FOUNDATION feels notably different. Rather than attempting to define the value of craft through words, it allows nature, time, and shared experience to tell the story quietly for themselves.
