I am maria!

Category: Practice-based research

  • Past her Prime

    Past her Prime

    They say I’m a woman”

    past her prime”who’s

    “run out of time”

    but,

    I have the ability to see the me,

    who was 20. . .

    Trapped in the loop of being the good girl,

    no mistakes allowed, trying hard,

    to make mama proud …

    then at 30. . . 

    It was the same.

    Playing that game, but now, I’m a mother,

    with another,

    other. . .

    Then came 40, still selflessly giving,

    then came 50, the reckoning. . .

    the veil lifted,

    clarity gifted,

    wont’t play the game,

    won’t be tame,

    won’t tone down,

    not going to stop,

    telling my story,

    even when they say,

    “you’ve had your day”

    “you look bad!”

    Oh, it just makes me mad!

    How dare they say,

    I’ve had my day!

    I’m not finished yet,

    I’ve earned the right, don’t you forget!

    They say, “she’s passed her prime”

    “run out of time”

    But honey, I’m only just getting started. 


    Look at me! 

    Look carefully!

    Take a picture if it helps you see!

    This is my time I’m moving into the light, 

    because it wasn’t right,

    what went on before,

    it’s time to open that other door,

    emerge from


    being told,

    “you’re too old”

    it’s “time to fade”

    They say I’m past my prime.

    But they’re wrong,

    It’s my time.

    I see the mirror,

    my reflection.

    It’s time now to reveal. . .

    The real

    The true

    The one and only. . .

    You.

    A warm invitation to learn more about I am Maria!

    What is I am Maria!

  • You Always Were My Little Angel

    You Always Were My Little Angel

    He said, “you always were my little angel,”

    in another time in another place,

    when I had another face,

    his little girl before. 


    The illness took his mind. He couldn’t find

    the essence of who he was.

    I tried and tried to see ,

    if he recognised me,

    everytime I went,

    the illness didn’t relent,

    It was sad,

    I wanted my Dad,

    but there was nothing we could do,

    he was hidden within the maze of the brain and he would never be the same.

    As time goes on and age sits in,

    I always think back to that day when,

    his eyes dim, looked at me to say,

    “You were always my little angel.”

    These poetic works emerge alongside the research, functioning as immediate expressions of voice, identity, and transformation.

    More Poems!

  • I look in the mirror

    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.

    See more of Valeria’s work @valeria_pazosf

    See more of my sonic experiments

    Sonic Experiments

  • Lonely Star

    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.

  • Their song, our song

    Their Song, our Song is a poem which reflects on the lived memories of women born into wartime and the lasting echoes carried across generations. Beginning with the story of a child left behind during the chaos of war, the poem traces a life shaped by hunger, labour, and the silencing of girls’ voices in a world where choice and agency were limited.

    Through reflection and witnessing, the work asks us to imagine those little girls who have now become old women, and to recognise the injustices they endured. It invites the present generation to carry their stories forward, transforming silence into song.

    This piece forms part of my ongoing creative research exploring voice, intergenerational memory, and the healing potential of artistic expression within the project I am Maria!

    Their Song, our song

    1943 my mother was born 

    In a country war torn

    bombs were going off.

    Mother of 5 picked up 4 and ran out the door leaving her behind not knowing what she’d come back to find. . .

    war baby grew 

    and what she knew.

    Hunger,

    child labour,

    education was a favour a luxury,

    girls were currency,

    with

    no agency,

    no choice,

    no voice.

    Imagine that can you somehow?

    The little girls old ladies now,

    recognise that it was wrong.

    It’s up to us to carry them,

    to a new day,

    to a new song!

    The following audio file is a sonic setting to this poem which reflects on war memory, women’s voices, and the intergenerational stories that continue to live within us. These themes are closely connected to my Croatian heritage, where song and language carry cultural memory across generations.

    👉 Discover more in the Croatian Voice and Song Collection

  • On the Verge

    On the Verge

    Her lips tremble

    and she feels the pain

    of what she held in

    not giving way.

    Let the words spill 

    out into the light of day!

    Like a landslide 

    they will no longer be contained

    things she kept in like bad medicine 

    like a cough spill 

    out of her lips

    coming out

    giving a sense of bliss 

    of lightness and 

    feeling less

    wrong.

    Keep talking beauty

    keeping silent was never your duty. 

    It was a ban mostly imposed by a man.

    Now you can bloom,

    your lips no longer tremble,

    not a quiver,

    as the words roll out of you

    like a river,

    limpid clear and true,

    there was never anything wrong with you.

    This poem is part of the broader creative research journey I am Maria! where voice, identity, and feminine narratives are explored through poetry, song, and immersive performance. Emerging from the final stanza of On the Verge, Bloom is an electronic vocal work that traces a moment of rupture and release, where the voice moves beyond containment toward expression, transformation, a return to origin, and self-acceptance.

    Explore more creative reflections from the I am Maria! project HERE

  • Carmencita en fragmentos – Study II

    Carmencita…Study II

    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 is not an attempt to recreate Carmen.

    It is an attempt to fragment her.

    To see what remains.

    How the pieces come together.

    To see where I fit.

    Carmencita en Fragmentos | Study II

    Link to Study I Love is a Bird

  • Smiljana

    About Smiljana

    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

  • The Black Ribbon – Marama Crnu

    Marama Crnu – The Black Ribbon

    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 . . .

    ti si meni marama crnu dala moja slatka mala.

  • Do you care? Na na na

    Do you Care? Na na na

    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?

  • Rebel in the making

    Peel away the facade,

    that mask,

    the skin,

    that was pinned,

    on her face ,

    wrongly placed,

    rebel in the making,

    she refuses the faking ,

    3am.

    Strikes a flame,

    with her pen,

    on fire,

    creating to inspire,

    a danger to the ones,

    who want the liar.

    Each stroke,

    crafted to provoke, 

    the woman and  her muse,

    both  just lit the fuse. . .

    This poem sits within my ongoing creative research project I am Maria, where voice, identity, and artistic authorship are explored through performance, poetry, and sound.

  • Love is a Bird

    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.

    I hope you enjoy the piece and feel the l’amour.

  • Identity when it is obscured, who am I really?

    @just.iammaria

    She/her

    Our voice; the sound we make when talking or singing is deeply tied to identity. When you hear someone’s voice on the phone or in song, it is instantly recognisable. Yet one thing we rarely consider is how our own sense of identity can become obscured over a lifetime.

    As children, we vocalise freely. Singing, crying, laughing, shouting, these are natural expressions of our being. But as we grow, change sets in. Puberty alters the body and the voice, shifting us into discomfort. For women, the body’s transformation is visible, while the voice’s change is often more subtle, yet equally profound.

    My research into creative empowerment through my project I am Maria! has led me to question identity at many levels.

    Who am I, really?

    When did the classical training I received over my life begin to silence my true vocal identity, the voice of my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, that lineage of women within me? Why did I let it happen?

    As my investigation deepens, I am beginning to hear them again. Recently, I discovered my mother’s tone in my natural singing voice. I even heard traces of my grandmother. Now I ask, who else is in there? And why am I only allowing them to emerge now?

    For years, I was the good student, obedient and eager to please, even when my voice felt strained or silenced. Each time I suppressed my own instinct to defer to authority, I handed over part of my identity. The teacher’s voice grew louder, while mine diminished, until I could no longer recognise myself within the sound I was making.

    This is what happened to me.

    The master-apprentice system, so ingrained in classical music, often breeds obedience disguised as respect. For women, this submission is even more acute, shaped by lingering patriarchal structures that dictate how we should sound, behave, and exist.

    But what if your voice could simply be your voice?
    To sing with. To play with, however it wishes to emerge; freely, naturally, without constraint?

    After a lifetime of study, I am realising that it is time to return to nature: to my true voice, and my true self.

    An unfolding and continuing story