My motivation tracks back to my teenage years where I experienced brain injury, forcing me to recover from not holding my attention and accessing my memory under pressure. As I once lost those abilities, being able to focus is a precious value to me. In addition, I understand what it means to have no visual signs of trauma but being influenced and limited by it. Still, I have learned to bypass its triggers with specific rituals to ground myself and refocus when pressure overwhelms me.
I define trauma as collateral damage that occurs when two forces cannot align and hit each other: For example, in the form of a traffic accident or when a conflict of interest emerges – may it be between business, politics and nature. To me, a broken branch symbolizes the consequence of visible collateral damage, while embedding it into a new fitting context is part of the healing. I thrive on discovering as many moments when materials as a container of energy find a new place of balance after a collision that left chaos.
Consequently, I feel drawn to ambivalent situations as a source of inspiration. My workplace is in-between: Being a mediator, a medium, a media artist. So I keep immersing myself into positions of imbalance and ambiguity to transition them into balance and disambiguation. Some of my strategies to balance forces into harmony are slowing my pace down through walks in nature, temporarily disconnecting from devices, and seeking shelter from urbanity in my forest studio.
