Self reflections on a sunny spring day.
It might be the lock down, the copious amount of time spent in self-reflecting, analysing and meditating, or maybe it is just the gorgeous sunny British spring, but it feels like a spiritual reborn to me.
Do you know when you dig deep down in you and finally start making clarity of all the unresolved, neglected bits of your decades... all of the sudden gone. It feels like my soul has been deep spring cleaned. Others would call it a spiritual reborn.
When I was little you could described me with three words: imaginary, communicative and solitary. Imaginary, as I had imaginary friends which I could see and talk to. Communicative, as I couldn’t stop talking to them. Solitary, as nobody could see my magical world therefore, I couldn’t share that wonderful experience with anyone.
In that little, yet infinitive, and imaginary word I was the master storyteller where all my imaginary friends were acting as my muppets, like actors being directed through a script by a master director. I've always been lonely and, despite my communication skills have been above my peers' average, I really never felt to fit anywhere.
I never felt understood, neither belonged somewhere. I always found comfort in the wildest places of nature as well in those of my minds, where imagination could shape a reality around me which even felt almost tangible from time to time.
The feeling of being excluded, of not belonging anywhere took me to the path of competing against others. I almost felt in a way that rallying against others - and winning against them, could have been the key to lead me through acceptance. Through integration. It was also a way to demonstrate my mother and my father I was the perfect daughter. Always striving for perfection.
I tried to satisfy that hunger of my parents to have a perfect daughter and I shaped my soul and my body to feed that need. I felt content on seen their pride. But only from the outside.
It was self destructing from the inside.
Every time I won a competition, I lost. I lost acceptance. And every time I won a compliment from my parents, I lost. And I lost a part of my true-self.
Firstly, I lost acceptance because, as a winner of a competition, I built up that layer of arrogance over my skin which brought the other competitors do dislike me. Secondly, I decide to compete in something out of my real area of interest, adding exciting bullet
points on my curriculum vitae for a reader or a job interviewer, but subtracting opportunities of my soul to live, to my brain to create and to fully live the life I was meant to.
I competed in synchronised swimming and dance at national levels for a decade during my teens. I entered the professional Yachting World at the age of 22, competing in sailing and crossing the Atlantic twice; I then competed in gymnastics at the age of 26, where - after only few months of training, I was sharing the springboard with girls who have been skilled gymnasts for decades. And just after 350 days I became a professional bodybuilder and travelled across Canada and US on my early 30’s, falling into the black vortex of body dysmorphia and steroids abuse, competing against athletes who devoted their entire life to this kind of sport.
I placed 1st in many occasions. Yet, after that adrenaline rush coming from those competitions, and once I stepped down from the podium, there was nothing left. Just me, my ego and my trophy in my end. Then back into a empty home. And I just wanted more.
The only things left after two decades of competitions were a bunch of fogged memories and a pile dusted trophies.
My work path is no different. After I saw no opportunities in Italy, I moved to the UK with an empty bag and a heart full of hopes. From an unpaid apprentice in an advertising agency I moved to a paid freelancer role. I then became a Junior Designer and from there I started to climb that ladder of experience which saw me stepping to Middleweight than to Senior role. Then last year things changed.
I got a place as Art Director - and finally, I felt a bit like when I was directing my imaginary friends. I can be free to come out with ideas and work in the field I’ve always wanted to: advertising. I love advertising. I always did.
When I was a toddler my mum had to record TV Ads in order to feed me.
But ultimately I love communications.
And here is the change I want to see. And this applies equally about myself as well the field of application of my form of art.
I am embracing the fact that I don’t conform and I do no longer seek acceptance in what society defines as 'normality' anymore.
From this it starts the journey of the Change that I want to see. I see this rising of self-acceptance as a delicate flower, when it just starts to bloom.
It may just be Spring, or it may be the season of my life and my creative development, either way, I decided to combine my active interest with art, creating a marriage between the physical abilities of my body with the imaginative skills of my mind, creating a new born, a new form of Art, which is a mixture of Communication and Performance.
Some people may label me as a Performance Art, others as pure form of exhibition, other as a form to provoche. I believe is a mixture of them three.
With my form of Art I will give voice to those people who may don't have voice, I will be the Storyteller of those stories being untold as nobody dare to speak about, or tell them in a completely new - disruptive way.
I will be that imaginary, communicative and solitary vessel that will make unseen stories visible to the masses.
The stories
The Other Storytellers, brave artists who told beautiful stories, disrupting the way of doing Art & Communications.
The time feels about right...Don't you think?
And the change I wanted to see has already started...
