How Everything I Create Comes to Life
I never start with a goal. I start with a feeling. With a knot in my chest that won’t leave any other way—when I simply can’t not begin.
That’s important to say: I don’t choose to create. Creation comes to me as a necessity, a release valve.
But it doesn’t come out immediately. Before anything presentable is born, I enter a space I call “the in-between world.”
It’s a state between presence and dissociation, between chaos and order, between control and surrender.
Time doesn’t exist there—only hyperfocus.
Where nothing outside matters, and everything inside is unbearably loud.
That’s where I begin collecting fragments—of words, textures, light, trauma, and longing.
Like a walking meme.
And I stand still, trying to sense what among all that might have the potential to breathe together.
It’s not a rational process. It’s sensory, intuitive, almost feral.
I never ask “Will people understand this?”
I ask “Is this true?”
That’s why I don’t create in neat routines. I need preparation—deep, almost ritualistic. A clean studio means nothing if I’m not free inside. And freedom, for me, means: That I’ve been alone long enough. That I’ve thought I was losing my mind. That I’ve survived that thought. And that in the silence of that unraveling—I remembered who I am.
Once I begin, it’s hard to stop.
During those phases, I often lose weight—because everything becomes a distraction.
It’s a withdrawal into my inner world. Not because I want to, but because I have no other way.
That inner space demands everything.
And if I don’t give it everything—it gives me nothing in return.
When I photograph portraits, I live for the moment people forget who they were trying to be.
That’s why I let them stay, long and in silence.
Sometimes I look at them like I know them better than they know themselves—because in that moment, I usually do.
I’ve often felt shame when reviewing the images I captured—because through the lens, I stare directly into someone’s soul.
I don’t believe in the “right camera.”
I believe in the right feeling in my body the second I press the shutter.
Technically, I’m more than fluent—but only because I love the freedom knowledge gives me.
When you know everything, you don’t have to think anymore.
You can respond. You can create without fear.
But I’m extremely picky in post-production.
Post is the autistic part of me.
So for me, creation is a complicated process—until it starts.
And until it does, it’s torment.
The people closest to me know this best. 👂