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.
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.
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
Jasam bila malo dite, čista u scrcu! I was a little girl…
“I was a little girl, clean and pure in heart.”
This melody came to me in the midst of my research question:
How does the classically trained singer transform into a self-authored creative artist?
It emerged from deep questioning from reflection connected to my cultural heritage, my upbringing, and my identity as a singer and as a mature woman finding her place in the artistic and academic world.
There is something profoundly intergenerational in this song. Mother to daughter.
Aunt to niece.
Grandmother to granddaughter.
The grown daughters now sing: “I was a little girl, clean in my heart.”
At a time in the world where the binds of patriarchal structures limited our possibilities. Limited our education. Limited our careers. Limited how we were taught to be.
My own journey between classical singing and becoming a creative artist mirrors this construction.
One path says: Be precise.
Be correct.
Be contained.
The other says:
Explore.
Question.
Break form.
Be whole.
Jasam bila, malo dite is evidence of cultural transmission in another way too. I have never sung klapa. I have never freely harmonised within that tradition. Classical training does not teach that kind of instinctive communal sound.
When I first recorded this, I sent it to my aunt and asked if my Croatian was correct. She said it wasn’t because instead of malo dite, I sang mala dite.
Grammatically, she is right. “Malo dite” is correct but the word “mala” that is what I remember being called, that is how it lives in my body and sonically, I love the sound.
So, what is correct? The studied version? Or the lived one?
I find myself drawn to the “wrong” version.
It feels, fresh, raw, inspired.
Perhaps this too is part of my shift away from classical thinking? I do not have to be perfect anymore.
Two Versions
Lived, remembered, sung from body, raw
Studied, grammatically correct, refined
This recording begins with my aunt saying to my mother:
“Sing a little bit to Marina so she can sing it too.”
By adding this element I wanted to communicate how songs are passed on and how culture travels.
Not through perfection, but through repetition, imitation, affection.
Voice to voice. Woman to woman. Across time.
If this story resonates with you and you have ever felt the tension between what is “correct” and what is true, I invite you to explore more of my creative work, where voice, memory, and identity continue to unfold.
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.
She entered her room each day, ready for the structured and comforting routine of teaching.
At first, it was just a faint, rhythmic sound, a dull, periodic thump. Easy to ignore. But as time passed, the sound grew louder and louder until even her students began to notice.
They said it was a toad.
A large black toad, round and glistening, with skin like a smooth, wet pebble.
The toad arrived on cue each day, thumping, knocking at the door, until one morning the noise was so insistent it frightened her.
Her students whispered, “Why does the toad want to come in?”
The toad bothered her.
She stared at the grey door with its three little vents, she thought, I will not open it. I will ignore it.
Then, silence….
Moments later, a small silver-grey moth crawled through the vents, into the room.
The moth transformed.
And there it was, the toad, calm now, quiet, sitting in the room.
As I continue my academic and creative journey, I find myself increasingly drawn to exploring greater freedom and authenticity through my singing voice.
I often wonder how I might access my natural, untrained voice , as distinct from my trained, classical one. To do so, I must consciously undo certain habits and expectations instilled through years of classical training, and learn to accept sounds that, to me, once seemed ugly or foreign. Yet these sounds are undeniably me , part of my vocal identity. My voice, my sounds, they carry my energy, my soul, and my story.
This process of creative and vocal exploration feels thrilling, yet I’ve long sensed that such experimentation seems more permissible for contemporary singers than for classical ones. When a classically trained singer ventures beyond the expected boundaries, it often seems to “not work” sonically or at least, that’s what we’ve been told.
Then, something exciting happened. A contemporary singer whose career I’ve followed for the past eight years, Rosalía, an artist with flamenco roots released a new album that beautifully merges classical and contemporary sound worlds. On it, she explores her own classical tone and technique, and it is utterly captivating.
In her New York Times interview, Rosalía says:
“Everything is in constant movement… why shouldn’t my sound change with me?”
Isn’t that the truth? Why shouldn’t our voices evolve as we do? Why are we so attached to definition, to labels, to the boxes we build around ourselves?
Throughout my life as a classical singer, I’ve heard the same cautions repeated:
“Don’t sing contemporary music, you’ll damage your voice.” “You’ll undo your classical technique.”
Has anyone else heard these reasonings?
Now, I feel even more determined to continue down this path of vocal and creative exploration to find out what else lives inside my voice, my body, my imagination.
More colours, more possibility, more storytelling await when I open myself to the next chapter of my sound.
This reflection is part of my ongoing creative research journey, I am Maria! An exploration of voice, identity, and transformation. Through song, story, and self-inquiry, I continue to listen for the voice that remembers, heals, and creates – Marina
