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Anastasia Laska
Where energy flows, life grows
I think about it very often, but I’m still not sure what guides my life, my path, or the choices I make. Is it intuition? Coincidence? Or some quiet images from childhood that stayed with me and kept resurfacing? Most likely it’s all of that, mixed together in ways I’ll never fully understand. I remember very vividly — almost as if I can still see it — sitting in the corner of my grandmother’s wooden house, the one where I spent every summer in my childhood years. I would imagine my friends gathered there, a blend of people from different parts of my life: village friends, city friends, whoever felt close to me at that moment. In my mind, I was hosting them all in that space. The faces and the circumstances kept changing as I grew up, but the picture stayed.
And I now see how much it shaped the choices I made later on — gathering people I care about, creating spaces where they can simply be. When life eventually brought us closer to Croatia, it felt like the next chapter of that same dream.
Later, as an adult, that childhood feeling became something more concrete. I wanted a place by the sea — a place where horizon and sky melt into each other and the air itself feels different.
I still remember the moment I zoomed out on Google Maps and saw the shape of Grebaštica Bay right in the middle of my palm. When I first saw it with my own eyes, it felt less like finding a new place and more like recognizing something I already knew. I’m not superstitious, but I do trust my intuition, and mine was unusually clear and insistent.
Something about Dalmatia works on me in a way I can’t fully explain: the colours, the pace, the light, the way everything breathes. Especially when I come alone, off-season — driving down from the highway, seeing the bay appear, taking that first breath — something shifts immediately. I become softer, calmer, more observant. As if my whole system resets without me doing anything. This quiet inner change is what stayed with me, and what ultimately pushed me to create NovaVis. I want other people to feel that same moment of returning to themselves — not through dramatic breakthroughs, but through the right place, the right slow rhythm, and a few days of simply being.
Leonie Geurts
How we Started — Finding my way back
Before this project, I went through a tough year. Lots was happening — personal situations, shifts at work, changes that demanded attention and energy. I didn’t really feel stuck at the time, but looking back, I can see I had drifted away from myself in some ways. The experiences, both big and small, forced me to change, reflect, and come back to my own sense of direction.
The idea for NovaVis existed before our trip — just conversations and possibilities. But it wasn’t until we spent that week together in Croatia — at the place that would later become the heart of the project — that it all came together.
Being there was simple but powerful. The calm of the whole place — the quiet mornings, the rhythm of the days, the pace of life — gave me space to think clearly and reconnect with my own thoughts. It felt right. That’s when we looked at each other and said, “Let’s do this.”
For me, Novavis is not only a personal journey, it’s about creating something meaningful for others. I want people who visit or experience it to truly gain something — a sense of clarity, inspiration, or peace. I’ve always had the privilege to choose my path, to follow what matters to me, and now I want to make that privilege valuable for others too.
Standing there with two people I connected with immediately, I felt that sense of possibility again — and the responsibility to make it count.
For me, Novavis is about clarity, choice, and creating something that reflects who I am — and that adds real value to the people who experience it. A project that’s real, tangible, and built with people I trust.
Maria Clarke
Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get
I’ve spent my career exploring how we see, as a visual designer and photographer. Cameras took me across countries and into new worlds, teaching me to slow down and notice the light in everyday moments.
Life, like for all of us, has had its unexpected chapters, balancing work, family, health, and the things we never thought we’d have to learn to hold. I discovered new flavors of experience I didn’t plan for, and sometimes those surprises turned out to be exactly what I needed. Through all of it, photography became my way to stay present, grounded, learning to meet the unexpected with curiosity and light.
In September 2023, Anastasia invited me to Grebaštica to photograph the apartment and its surroundings. I thought I was just coming for work, instead the place itself made me pause. The landscape, the rhythm of the days, the simple human connection… it gave me a clarity and lightness I hadn’t realized I needed.
That experience planted the seed for Novavis. If this environment could create such space for reflection and renewal in our own lives, imagine what it could offer others.
Here, I, we, hope to share that same sense of presence, through creativity, conversation and noticing what is already good. A chance to breathe, reset, and rediscover your own light.
