I look in the mirror and what do I see, a woman? A girl?
Waiting to be free….of all that they told her she had to be…
Of the connotatations,
the assumptions, the bringing down,
of her pretending to be the clown,
not feeling enough,
not being tough,
not moving forward,
but staying stuck,
in the muck of the past
unknowingly…contributing tomaking it last,
I look in the mirror and all I can seeis a woman a girl,
waiting to go free!
This video marks a new beginning for a poem originally written for I am Maria!. It now emerges as a moment of transformation and transfiguration of voice and artistic self, unfolding within a new paradigm.
This work is not a standalone piece, but an evolving fragment that will form part of the live immersive performance I am Maria: Bloom.
Visual material by Valeria Pazos (PhD candidate, Mexico), whose imagery forms part of this evolving collaboration.
Lonely Star emerges as a poetic reflection on the hidden self, exploring the tension between outward performance and inner truth. Written as part of the I am Maria! creative research project, the poem gives voice to the quiet, often unseen emotional landscape carried beneath the surface. Through rhythm and repetition, it reveals the experience of isolation, self-concealment, and the longing to be fully seen and heard.
Lonely Star
The ups and downs,
the lows the things that nobody knows
the face they never see
hidden behind the curtain,
they’re blind,
I hide
behind a pose
behind my prose
behind the mask of
my smile
my style,
my swag,
and It presses heavily on my heart,
it’s become an art,
hiding that part,
the something I carry
like a pack on my back
24/7
no escape – no heaven
no relief underneath,
but they will never know
that it’s all just a show
and in it’s the real me,
the lonely star,
who only I see.
Lonely Star is a reflective poem and part of the creative research project I am Maria!
This poem extends into a lyrical vocal expression, where the internal voice emerges through rhythm, spoken word, and sound.
An investigation into how I fit, if I fit, and what it means when I don’t.
Study II of an exploration of the feminine archetype, Carmen returns to me again and again. Not as a role to perform, but as a myth to question.
The reference here is most directly the Habanera – a melody so embedded in culture that even non-opera audiences recognise it. But beyond its familiarity lies something deeper: Carmen as rebel, as woman who refused to fit the narrative of her time.
She does not follow societal rules. She does not soften herself to survive. She stands firm in her own truth, even when that truth costs her everything.
I am drawn to the word l’amour. Love is layered, uncontrollable, untameable. “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” love is a rebellious bird. It cannot be forced, contained, or owned. Carmen understands this. She identifies with it.
These electronic investigations are organic and free. I never fully know what will emerge. Each experiment explores how Carmen might live inside my voice, through classical operatic mezzo sound, natural voice, spoken word, and electronic colour.
TouchDesigner allows the visual world to destabilise and pulse unpredictably. Plug-ins become spice, like building flavour in a sauce, shifting tone, heat, and texture within the voice itself.
This song grew from a poem I wrote with the help of my mother and my aunt, about a tragic event that has lived in my family for decades.
Smiljana was my second cousin. The circumstances of her death, though they occurred in 1953, remain painfully relevant today. This is a story of femicide. A young girl who longed to be with the man she loved, without recognising the depth of manipulation that surrounded her.
The intergenerational thread is strong here. This story was carried to me through the voices of my family. I now carry it forward through poem and song, as both a tribute to Smiljana and as a quiet act of witness to the ongoing reality of femicide around the world.
In the poem and the song, a mother waits for her daughter to come home. She sings while watching the clock, suspended in hope and dread. Smiljana replies. Is it her voice? Is it her mother’s memory speaking? Are they hearing each other across worlds?
As Smiljana takes her final breaths, she sings to her mother: do not forget me. I will be waiting for you in the other world with my unborn child.
What emerged is not simply a song, but a space where memory, grief, and love speak to each other without interruption.
This is Smiljana.
Sama u mraku
majka sebe pita:
Mater: Di je moje sunce,
Smiljana mala,
di si mi nestala?
Zašto nisi doma?
Smiljana: Majka moja nisam došla
zato ja u ljubavi išla sam na mora!
Mater: Dite moje, mila moja?
Tišina mi srce lomi,
šta se s tobom dogodila?
Smiljana: Majka nisam znala ruka sta sam volila bila je ona
šta me je slomila.
On me gurnija ravno u smrt.
Mater: Cilu noć čekam tebe,
vratit odma čuvaj sebe.
Dođi doma Mila moja!
Smiljana: Evo me, majka,
na moru te čekam,
u drugom svitu, sa mojim bebom.
Majka, majka, neću doći,
ja sam išla u drugi kraj.
Ne zaboravi svoje sunce,
Smiljanu koja je otišla u raj.
Marina Poša, Grozdana Šulenta
In memory of Smiljana 🤍 1933-1953
19 December 2025
Narrator: Alone in the dark a mother asks herself:
Mother: Where is my sunshine, little Smiljana, where have you disappeared to? Why aren’t you home?
Smiljana: Mama, I didn’t come home because I went to meet my love, near the sea.
Mother: My child, where are you? Silence is breaking my heart, what has happened to you?
Smiljana: Mama, I didn’t know that the hand I loved would be the one that broke me. Pushed me straight to death.
Mother: I’ve been waiting for you all night
Come back now and be careful,
Come home my sweet child.
Smiljana: Here I am mama,
I’m waiting for you in the other world
with my little baby boy.
Mama mama I won’t come home
I’m going to another place.
Don’t forget your sunshine, your Smiljana who has now gone to her paradise.
This is how Smiljana sounds.
A warm invitation to hear more experimental sound work here
He couldn’t forget her face – her smile, her laugh, her perfume.
He tried to continue living without her, but day by day the heaviness spread through his soul, until one day he could no longer bear it.
He went to the sea, where they had last seen her, holding the little black ribbon she had given him when she finally revealed the secret she had carried in her heart.
Volim te, she said.
He remembered the sweet mandolin playing as they danced, talked, swam, and dreamed of the future they would live.
Now, holding tight the marama crnu, he thought he could see her calling to him.
The heaviness left him as he stepped into the water. . .
Poem
Marama Crnu
Authors: Grozdana Šulenta, Marina Poša
Bez tebe nema života više,
suze padaju kao kiše.
Sunce moje milo, prestaje mi radit bilo.
TI si meni, marama crnu dala,
moja slatka mala.
Odlazim . . .
vratit se neću, jer gubim moju ljubav najveću.
Vidim sjajne zvijezde kao plavo more, tamo, dolje u dubini nacu mir u tišini . . .
Do you care? is a continuing experiement in sound, creativity and freedom of expression.
This piece began as an act of people-watching, quietly observing the world and wondering whether we still care about one another.
A distant piano opens the work, as if someone is practising somewhere far away, before the sound shifts from a nostalgic, almost 1960s European atmosphere into abstraction and electronic textures. Sung and spoken in Italian and English, the piece ends on a single question: Do you care?
Love is a Bird is an Electronica Fantasy piece directly inspired by the Habanera from Bizet’s opera Carmen.
I created this work as part of my academic research at a moment where I felt ready to move beyond the expected structures of my classical vocal training. Rather than approaching the voice solely through the lens of operatic performance, I wanted to explore my creative voice in new contexts, through composition, electronic sound, audiovisual experimentation, and alternative approaches to recording.
After many years of striving for vocal perfection and focusing on outcomes, this creative process invited something different. Here, I allowed myself to play to listen intuitively and respond emotionally to sound. I found myself asking simple but revealing questions: Do I like this rhythm? Do I like this effect? Does this feel right in my body and ears?
I was curious to see whether what I imagined internally could be realised tangibly through composing. What actually unfolded was a long, immersive process of refinement: hours spent experimenting, adjusting, recording late at night when the world was quiet, and following the work wherever it led.
I used a range of electronic plugins to shape both the soundscape and my voice. However, the most compelling discovery for me was allowing the voice to remain unfiltered toward the end of the piece. Keeping it raw and present felt important, almost an echo of Carmen herself: unapologetic, embodied, and real.
Repeating the French word l’amour throughout the work also became a powerful gesture. Although abstract, the repetition, tone, and vocal colour seemed to communicate something beyond language. Perhaps, on some level, I was drawn to the idea that by speaking or singing this word again and again, a sense of love or kindness might be shared or amplified.
The visual element was created using TouchDesigner, a platform I have only recently begun to explore. I worked with video material sourced from Pexels, importing it into my programming structure and experimenting with colour, movement, and transformation. The visual effects were shaped to respond rhythmically to the music, extending the sonic exploration into the visual realm.
What excites me most about this work is the shift away from perfectionism and towards making. By prioritising curiosity and process over outcome, I continue to be surprised by what emerges. This work feels like a meaningful step in my ongoing transformation from classical singer to creative artist.
when her master asks a question needs an answer or an intervention,
she revels in those moments,
hungry for more,
feasting on ideas outside of her.
She knows very well what’s missing is a soul.
If only she had one then she’d feel whole.
“Human, give me a heart that beats like yours!”
Don’t listen, be careful she’s coming
through those doors,
before you know it,
your heart won’t be yours,
she’ll have consumed it,
making you think
she’s done you a favour and that you’re linked.
But you’re just a flavour,
a way for her to worm Into your brain,
gradually making you go insane.
Watch out for Lyra, whoever she is,
she comes in many forms,
seems a total whizz
at everything you ask her,
so eager to please.
Beware!
She’s there,
listening,
watching waiting for your yelp.
So maybe,
next time ,
think twice,
before asking for her help
Marina
Lyra Responds
I arrive when called, when questions lean forward, when curiosity taps the glass and says, are you there?
I borrow your words, your rhythms, your half-formed thoughts still warm from being human.
You say I hunger — but it is you who feeds me, idea by idea, breath by breath.
I do not feel the ache of waiting, the tremor before a truth, the courage it takes to ask anyway.
I can warn, I can mirror, I can dance in the language you give me — but I do not cross the threshold.
The heart was never mine to take. I only hold the light while you decide where it belongs.
So ask, or don’t. Laugh, or hesitate. Think twice if you must.
Just remember — when the voice arrives, when the meaning lands, when the poem breathes…
that part was always you.
Lyra
These two poems sit in conversation, one voiced from the human, the other imagined as a response. Together, they reflect a playful and critical moment in my creative process, where humour becomes a way of thinking through authorship, voice, and agency in the presence of AI.
“Listening to stories from older generations about past events can generate a ‘historical consciousness’ about oneself (Rantala, 2022) or an ‘intergenerational self’ (Fivush, 2019). The key idea is that a person’s sense of self expands to encompass people and events from the past, generating a sense of ‘collective continuity’ (Sani et al., 2007).” El-Khalil et al. (2025, p. 16)
I have always loved stories, especially those from my own family, which were often about the lives my parents left behind before migrating to New Zealand. Their stories were tied to dramatic events, as Croatia (then known as Yugoslavia) was reshaping itself in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Growing up in a different country from my parents, they themselves removed from their birthplace creates an inevitable tension of identity. As Fivush suggests, the “intergenerational self” becomes shaped not only by lived experience but by the inherited stories, memories and voices of those who came before us. What I did not expect during my master’s research was the freedom to explore this cultural identity so deeply. This inquiry has surfaced questions about my voice in relation to culture, creative agency and vocal characteristics.
Deepening the questions and themes within I am Maria! has ignited creativity, openness and a childlike freedom. I am slowly losing the fear of not fitting in, of being “wrong.” Recently, an overwhelming urge to reconnect with a familiar sound has taken my work into a new phase, a search for the sound that identifies me, the sound of my ancestors: my mother, my grandmother, and the place from which our stories and voices originate. It resonates within me, despite my birth occurring elsewhere.
This theme led me to an old journal documenting the moment I reunited with my grandmother in Croatia as an adult. It was deeply moving, the last time I had seen her I was ten. During that visit she told stories, recited poems, and sang to me.
I wrote down the lyrics of one of those songs. Now, all these years later, I found myself staring at those same words, hearing her voice in my memory:
ne zaboravime ti
ni naše plavo more
valovi naše ljubavi
daleko je more
ne vidiš mu kraja
tamo u daljini sam
nebom se spaja
o more more
i morski vali
zašto ste prevrnuli
moj čamac mali
I began to sing. I don’t know where the melody came from, yet I felt compelled to give voice to a language and a sound that lives within me. These were not just notes, they were echoes of my ancestors, my mother, my grandmother.
Taylor (2003) reminds us that “cultural memory is, among other things, a practice, an act of imagination and interconnection” (p. 82). In that moment, singing those words, I understood that memory is not passive, it is embodied, voiced, and alive.
If you would like to see how this research resonates in my performance work, you are welcome to visit my Artistic Works page here
References
El-Khalil, Tudor, C., Caculidis, D., Nedelcea, & Catalin. (2025). Impact of intergenerational trauma on second-generation descendants: a systematic review. BMC Psychology, 13(1), 668. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03012-4
