Encouraged by the environment, which fostered these thoughts, I decided to allow myself to get 'fully out there' and not question all the crazy, unconventional, my mind comes up with, in its need to communicate my deep experience and love story with the Oud, its facets, worlds, encounters, moments, dimensions and my PLACE in this WORLD - which, as unusual and challenging it oftentimes feels, is a REAL PLACE and my positionality in it. One I wish to foster and honor and share about continuosly.
Each elements I chose, every bit and aspect of it, had a clear reason and justification to be there, nothing was at random, though together I hopefully created more of a weaved etheral impression to be taken in and breathed in, than anything to be analysed, dicected and maticoulously explained or logically understood. Today I am happy I allowed myself for this unique, incomplete expression. There is a lot to work on, develop and reasses, but it is an extremely valuable experiment about the question of who I am, who I can be and who I am becoming with the Oud. It addresses questions of Identity of the instrument, its environments, story and stories and my translocational position, my being with it in the world - so intrinsically sewn in with my own biography and that of others and the synergies these meeting points produce. I can not quite get the RHIZOM out of me and sensing, that it infact is the connectivity between things, which makes the most of the world. The In-Between.
I often notice a similar expression and dialect, mood in almost all of my creative expressions, whether it is photography, music, poetry or film.. it is almost as if through those I can see and perceive some essence about me and I deeply long to connect with it and grasp it, share it, let others partake in it, break an inner silence and isolation, which has almost a metaphysical element to it and thus something universal to us all, I guess.
Meeting Efva Lilja, hearing her story and perspective made me connect instantly to all these parts of me and recognize my constant conflict of never allowing myself the space of expressing things fully through my own means. Always searching to fullfill ready made images and expectations, what a musician is, a photographer, but I also never fully am those things by themselves either. It is a constant, lifelong fight and each discipline has its needs to be fostered and dedicate to, each needs time of which there is plenty, but never enough. Experiencing her personality made me crave being all, that I always felt within. She appeared a strong rolemodel of possibilities and an impersonification of "giving myself permission" to: unequivocally being an Artist, being oneself, without shame, and doing all one can.
I always used different elements in my musical performances - sometimes more, sometimes less. (Always with a sense of guilt of 'not being enough of a pure musician' - which I too, am and was, especially with the violin or in projects of others.) Be it one poem, or specific light, sth. to enhance the audience receptivity to the story told behind sound. The media I use always varied in its degrees and fullfilled different role and purpose in my programs. Being naturally connected with that synergetic, synesthetic experiencing the world, in which physical sensation, feeling, sound and space merge into a multidminesional being in this world, trying to communicate something essential beyond words and gestures alone, a world in which each action is expression of the same exact thing. But I never let it take over and dominate the spaces I am in. I never gave myself permission to be uncomfortable with it, to take a heap and take a real risk.
My Encounter with Efva Lilja was one of my most influencial moments during my first year of the Masters program. Her versatility as an artist and strong convictions spoke to me very much and I could recognize myself in big parts with her approach to art in general - with the big difference, that I never fully gave myself permission to be unequivocally all of me in one.
Always naturally drawn to all the arts at once, infected with poetry from a young age, captivated by the musical sounds in our household, always drawing or sculpting in sand, with broken bits of coal left by the fire on paper. Writing since a young age. Taking photos in my mind before I had a camera of my own, capturing things I saw in my memory, imagining how things would look on film. Playing music, dancing. Writing contemporary multimedia screenplays at random. Needing it all to communicate through a barrier of how I experienced the world around and within of me.
I always felt urged to decide between words, music and visual arts. Like if society told me, I can impossibly be all of it at once. Like I need to chose between my chest, my hand or my heart, like I need to throw away most of it. I never fully could.
As a young girl I approached a Film- and Theaterschool and almost applied to be a director - overviewing all the elements and most importantly telling a story with various means, complexity and poetry. I completed most of the tasks, but coming from a humble migrant family, I lacked the self esteem, the means and ultimately didn't have the guts to apply. I can not regret my desicion for the many things I discovered since in life, but I believe, that there was a reason for me to having been infatuated by the thought.
