Representation feeds imagination

São Paulo-Brasil, 1998.

I was ten years old. Fourth grade. Every school day, my girlfriends and I would get together between classes to talk. I remember this day so clearly. It was an extra important day: Chiquititas, the most popular teen girls tv series at that time, had announced an open casting call for its second season, and they were looking for girls, like us. They were all excited and making plans for how they would submit their applications. I was not.

Even though I share the requirements just like them, I remember feeling removed from the possibilities they were introducing to me —like some invisible wall segregated us. As Iilistened to their plans, I couldn't make a plan of my own. My perspective was influenced by how that world existed.

Whenever I revisit this memory, I remember that I believed bodies like mine were not allowed on the screens. At that point, my archival collection of tv characters was failing diversity, and I had no clear conscience of the impact that had on my development as an adult and a human. The girl raised to be whatever she wanted, still had her imagination limited due to the lack of representation.

As I grew, I observed soap operas and their attempts to represent diverse communities, constantly landing on stories driven by sadness and excessive drama placing us as victims or incapable. That was not how my life felt. That was not how I perceived my reality. Movements towards equity misunderstood inclusion as the accurate solution; ignoring its existence is tied to exclusion.

As an adult, I now understand the importance of imaginative narratives, how every perspective carries relevant weight in building a collaborative and integrated society, and how utopian worlds are incredibly hard to build. Yet, it is all very much possible.

In my honest attempt to navigate this world as a collaborator, I have embraced art, using my personal experiences as inspirations to explore and expose my sincere thoughts. Finding healing to that ten-year-old girl alive inside me, 'I Am A Piece of Art' was born, hoping to create new possibilities of belonging while celebrating beauty of unalike bodies.

As I tap into artistic and creative explorations, I realized how much prejudice and misunderstanding I have experience but also I find voice and ways to express it that are benefit to the evolution of society. We can make this world a better place.