The Residency
An invitation to truly
inhabit a place
Mythes & Matières is not a tour. It is not a workshop retreat in the conventional sense. It is something quieter and more deliberate, a creative residency designed for those who want to understand a place from the inside.
Over five days, you will explore the Basque Country through its living artisan traditions, its wild nature, and its founding myths. You will slow down. You will touch materials. You will gather plants, listen to stories told under open sky, and create with your own hands.
These residencies are designed for those who seek to fully inhabit a place, to understand it, to feel it, to bring something real back home.
SLOWNESS :
Pause. Notice. Feel.
This is not a packed itinerary. Mythes & Matières is built around a different rhythm. One that gives you space to notice things. Slowness is not emptiness; it is the condition for everything else.
MATTER :
Touch. Create. Take home.
There is something irreplaceable about making with your hands. A ceramics workshop with a local ceramicist, a Basque cake baked in a farmhouse kitchen. You will leave with objects that carry the trace of your time here.
LAND :
Walk. Gather. Breathe.
The Basque Country is your first material. A guided foraging walk with a passionate herbalist, a day trip to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port by train. The land speaks, if you slow down enough to listen.
STORY :
Listen. Dream. Remember.
Every land has its myths. In the Basque Country, they live in the hills, the caves, the forests. An evening of Basque tales : Mari, Basajaun, Laminak, Witches draws the residency together around something ancient.
Five Days
A lifetime of memories
The rhythm remains flexible, attuned to the group, the weather, and the breath of the place.
Welcome tea on arrival. A gentle opening circle to meet one another and begin to feel the land beneath your feet. Shared dinner in the warmth of the house. Then, in the quiet of the evening, a small moment to set an intention for the week ahead.
A full day outdoors. A guided foraging walk through the Basque hills with a passionate herbalist, learning to read the plants, touch the earth, understand what grows here. Picnic lunch on the hillside. Followed by an introduction to herbalism in the afternoon. Dinner together, and a quiet evening writing circle around the plants we gathered.
Morning in the studio: a ceramics workshop with Eguzkilore, a local ceramicist who comes to us. Learn the essential gestures, centring, shaping, presence. Lunch, then an afternoon walk through the 150-year-old chestnut grove behind the house. Back in the kitchen: a gâteau basque made from a grandmother’s recipe. In the evening, by candlelight, the Basque myths gathering.
A day trip to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port by train, following the valley of the Nive. We arrive in one of the most beautiful medieval towns in the Basque Country, winding streets, the Porte Saint-Jacques, views over the Pyrenees. Lunch in town, time to wander, then the train back in the late afternoon. A quiet closing dinner together.
A slow morning. Free creative time, writing, drawing, a solitary walk, each at her own pace. A closing circle to share what the week has given. A last breakfast together. Departure in the early afternoon, hands full, heart full.
Where the land speaks softly, and you finally listen.