self-explorative

For the past year, I have been laser-focused on this project, driven to create a professionally made final work with theoretically substantial content and storytelling. I aimed to discuss more than just gender, addressing emotion, rationality, individualism, revolution, the malleability of truth and identity, and more. In a world where everything is gendered, everything is already connected. In my research papers, I sought interconnectedness through metaphysical why-questions. Though I wish the world would shift its focus from what-questions to why-questions more often, this project taught me to sometimes ask "why?" a little less. Since revising the artistic concept, I have attempted to let go of my tendency to over-explain and over-intellectualize- and instead, started to focus on describing and doing. "As the protagonist, what do I feel and see in this scene? What is happening? What is the audience looking at and experiencing?" Only through asking what-questions, I can discover what those things actually mean; the why-questions.

The eight weeks of production was my way of reconstructing femininity, treating this project as my exposure therapy, deliberately embracing the discomfort I always felt with (feminine forms of) self-expression. I threw myself into the deep end, moving away for six months to an unfamiliar place to explore the music scene alone. My disconnection from my feminine traits meant I often dissociated in moments of vulnerability and emotionality, preventing these moments from integrating into my personal identity - as research also shows. By putting myself on-screen in outfits that made me uncomfortable and moving in ways I had never consciously allowed myself, I have now opened a door for growth within my identity. I didn't need to put up much of an act, as I was actively exposing my internal conflict to an audience. Though I initially wanted to make a video essay, it just didn't make any sense. Femininity, to me, means passion: the conscious, assertive expression of vulnerability. This is something I cannot explain through words, only through experience. Improvisation became my tool to practice putting unconscious elements into the conscious realm: turning the uncomfortable into passion.