This creative work emerges from practice-based autoethonographic research where the performative work, I am Maria! functions as a site of investigation and transformation. A source which ignites creativity and self expression. A wamr invitation to explore more of my work here in my creative world.
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.
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?