I don’t normally make objects. At the age of 8 I left the country where I was born, and led a traveling life. The temporary transitory nature of my work up to now is a reflection of my inability to put down roots and the feeling that as I have lived in so many places, I belong nowhere. I have always dreamed of landscapes, and along the way I have collected more, some are places I have never been to. I think about these landscapes and wonder if they are something imagined or somehow passed down and why some, and not others, are the ones I bring with me?

I grew up making theatre props and painting sets, and this has become my point of reference, a way of seeing the world. Forming these landscapes into structures akin to theatrical sets is a way to examine them closer, as if by imaging myself within them I can allow the story to unfold.

Perhaps this new desire to make objects coincides with the decision to settle here, in a bricks and mortar house, which belongs to me, and is now a place for these new objects to live, these containers of my memories and inner landscapes.

Once we depart from our birth place and make our roots in a new place, we might find ourselves in a space between the earth and the sky, a kind of limbo, in search for identity. Our mind  is full of dreamlike memories, some appear defined, others as colour spots and lines that cross the body and transmute into sensations and feelings.

I remained in such a search for more than 20 years, and my journey brought me here, to Sant Pere de Ribes, where after such a long period, I felt my place. The chain of memories that collected and grew from place to place formed a circle that shaped the understanding that by leaving one place, and passing through many others, everything that matters to me, that makes me who I am, I carry inside of me.

My body is full with memories of landscapes that speak to me, and transform into new meanings, joining new experiences reflecting my reality at this very moment. I feel that the space to which I belong is the one that I am creating myself.

Pieces of my heart are scattered in different parts of the world. One part will always belong to an almost abandoned picturesque village in the middle of Belarus, Gonchanskoe, the birthplace of my mother. Another will stay in a small Siberian town situated 60 km south of the Arctic Circle, Novy Urengoy, where I was born. These places are part of my story; the history of my family; my roots, to which I can always return.

For the past 16 years I lived in 5 different countries - each of them I called home. My heart was colored by all the places I lived in, but the more time passes, the stronger I feel the influence and presence of my roots of who I am, and who I am becoming.

I am interested in exploring the relationship between my body and the spaces in which I have inhabited. I have lived in 21 houses and moved 20 times. Once I realized that this trend of not having a fixed address would form part of my identity, I began to collect envelopes of received correspondence.

Facing each move that I knew would come sooner or later, I decided to scan these envelopes and save a digital memory of each house. The postal address gave me proof of having lived there. A specific place, a street, a number, a postcode, a location on the map that I could refer to as a record, even if temporarily.

The questions I ask myself are what is the memory that my body carries from each of the houses in which I have lived? How are the spatial dimensions of these houses registered within my body? What would happen if the body told us the story of these places to which it has belonged?

Through dance and the use of video I have been able to record this embodied narrative. Drawing with my body on the canvas the internal map of those places.

The performance piece Sounds of Belonging is a playful acoustic experience in which the audience is invited to co create a graphic music score for a vocal sound performance. By leaving traces of their bodies on paper, a large-scale drawing will be created in which imprints merge, and new shapes and pathways appear. This collaborative graphic landscape will serve as a visual playground for the two vocal artists: Paula Nogueira and Sandra Pujols.

‘I grew up with classical music surrounding me. When I went to Berlin, I experimented as a musician in a theatre production and improvised under the cupola of the planetarium. I feel comfort and breath when music surrounds me, a feeling of home and belonging. Then I dived into the theatre and performance world, and music took a backseat. The desire to get more music back into my artistic practice, to experiment with sound and movement and combine it with my love for participatory projects, has led me to this investigation with graphic scores.

Sounds of Belonging is a continuation of my research project The Score as a Tool for Participatory Events funded by DAS Graduate School, University of the Arts Amsterdam (2017-2019) including a residency at MACBA Study Centre, Barcelona, 2018.

I am walking and observing the light and the shadows move across the landscape. The breeze sweeps through everything that is growing along my path. Clouds float above and the soil below my feet is moist after the rain. The smells and noises fill the emptiness. I am present and at the centre of this pulsing, living space.
I feel connected and part of this bigger cycle.
I feel an overwhelming sense of belonging.
I grasp on to that feeling and carry it with me, along with some interesting dried Agave that I collected during the walk. I want to reflect on this feeling and make a drawing.

For this exhibition, I consider a landscape that holds a space between stillness and motion. A grounding and central point between permanence and impermanence.