Artist Residency | XII Edition | Gloriana Ximendaz

Slash and Burn | Glorianna Ximendaz’s Anti-Residency

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Eloquent with soft-spoken intensity, Glorianna Ximendaz describes her participation in Hotel Belmar’s 12th Artist Residency as an “Anti-Residency.” Invited in response to her deeply personal and groundbreaking photographic series Origen (Origin), Ximendaz arrived carrying intense emotional material, a creative eruption sparked by the heartbreaking realization that a revered family member, a “hero” archetype, had committed unspeakable abuse. This revelation marked a painful link in a generational chain of suffering endured by the women of her maternal lineage at the hands of powerful male figures.

Monteverde’s renowned cloud forest, vast yet delicately fragile, became a mirror of her inner turmoil. Ximendaz reimagined the iconic mist canopy as a boundless pillow, a soft shroud that absorbed and muffled her silent cries. These were her own, yet they intertwined with countless others confronting corrosive patterns of abuse and silence. It was at this moment that the artist made a conscious decision: her residency would not leave behind conventional artworks. Instead, it would take shape through performative acts and deeply personal engagements that grappled with contradiction and illuminated intersectionality.

In this context, hospitality emerged as an unexpected yet profoundly healing conduit. Within its attentive choreography—staff smiles, carefully staged comforts, quiet spaces for reflection—Ximendaz found nourishment and containment during her challenging artistic release. Seeking what lay beneath surface-level hospitality, she probed deeper, asking those who tended to her about their own relationships with Monteverde’s natural surroundings. Through these exchanges, the hotel’s staff became her protectors, guardian angels who carried her through an emotionally transformative journey.

Her residency opened with a jarring encounter: an unexpected scorpion, a sharp trigger of childhood memory. It recalled the “Hero,” who had once been stung by a large scorpion and dismissed it with a shrug, declaring, “It was nothing.” He had preserved the creature in a glass jar, turning the moment into a symbol of supposed invincibility and control.

This time, Ximendaz embraced a different interpretation, invoking the mythic image of a scorpion that, when encircled by flames, stings itself in a final act of resistance. To her, the scorpion no longer embodied dominance but the fierce survival instinct of the women in her family and their capacity to resist, protect, and defy.

Transforming pain into strength, she enacted a visceral gesture: pinning an iconic photograph of the “Hero” to a forest tree and spitting on it—primal, powerful, and universally comprehensible. This raw act opened the path for further artistic exploration.

From that defiance emerged a larger performance, one rooted in pain, conflict, and the urgent need for release. The bonfire became her stage, where destruction was transformed into ritual. Feeding it with mementos of the “Hero’s” life, she turned private anguish into a public gesture, an artwork forged in flames that confronted memory while burning through its hold. As the last photographs and tokens burned, the final image disintegrated into ash. At that very moment, a chain of family text messages made her phone ping and vibrate in staccato bursts—an unwitting punctuation of closure.

On the day of her departure from Monteverde, Ximendaz captured what could be read as the epilogue to her “Anti-Residency”: a photograph of her four-year-old daughter embracing a playful baby goat that had wandered toward her. It was a fleeting image of innocence, trust, and quiet joy. The tenderness of that moment stood in stark contrast to the heavy themes Ximendaz had just confronted and transformed. Where silence reigns, a voice must rise. Where rage burns, liberation follows. And in the distance, Monteverde’s mist still lingered—perhaps no longer a pillow to muffle cries, but a place for the soul to rest.

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Artist Reflections

“I am profoundly grateful for this unexpected opportunity. It placed me in a state of mind that compelled me to reconsider hospitality not as privilege, but as a transformative path toward healing. As a photojournalist, I am accustomed to framing stories for others, yet in Hotel Belmar’s open-view studio the dynamic shifted: while immersed in grief, I became the observed. A couple witnessed my vulnerability from the outside, and in their gaze I understood that trauma cannot be laid to rest until it is first brought to light. It was a moment as fleeting and elemental as the forest mist—an encounter that could only have happened here.

That moment of exposure opened a deeper recognition: if we return to the most primitive, trauma ceases to be a wound and becomes a path to resilience. The forest regreens after loss, and so do we. My ancestors endured pain, and today I am the one reborn—slashing, burning, and burying sorrow so it may decompose and give rise to something new.

In the forest, I see them all—my grandmothers, my mother, my daughter. Their strength runs through me like roots through the soil. Pain does not disappear, but it heals, closing like a scar and leaving me stronger than before.”

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Artist Bio

Glorianna Ximendaz is a Costa Rica–based visual storyteller and artist. She works primarily with photography while also exploring mixed media and moving images. Her practice often focuses on everyday life, human relationships, and memory, considering how these elements shape both the individual and the surrounding context. Through her work, she seeks to create pieces that are both aesthetically compelling and thought-provoking, positioning art itself as a political statement.

To learn more about the artist, visit: ximendaz.com

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