What are three life moments that made you who you are today?

Wow… Three is a number that definitely sounds like too little when it comes to moments that made me who I am today, but also definitely sound like too many to be able to get a grasp on.

I’d say the first one is travelling on long car trips. I grew up in a farm very far away from town and we used to take 10-12 hour drives from one another. These trips were very contemplative. My parents have always engaged in imaginative talks about everything. This definitely gave me passion for exploring my imagination.

Second, I’d say has been the life moment described in the book. Even though it has just come to the surface recently. I now see how it shaped my urge for making visual memories, the way I relate to others, how I deal with intimacy, and where many of my fears come from. These are all good things by the way. Everyday I am learning from them, and so about myself.

Third, I would say important talks that I had with people who have been through something similar to what I’ve been through. I think that seeing you’re not alone and hearing from people that are also learning how to navigate places with not much light shinning on them, learning to trust themselves and the unknown. This has been so encouraging to me. I have definitely started not feeling alone.

Who or what is inspiring you these days? What’s shaping your thinking?

These days have been particularly different in terms of inspiration for me. I have recently lost my Visa status in the U.S. and basically received a letter saying I had to leave the country in no more than 20 days. I’m home now, in Brazil. Being here has been challenging but also refreshing. So much has changed me in my past 3 years living in the U.S. and I’m very grateful for that. This has definitely allowed me to see home differently.

Lately I have been focusing a lot on photographing with the intent of making memories only. I have been feeling nostalgic about photo albums and how an ordinary photo of the apartment I live today will mean so much to me a few years from now.

Do you feel you are more instinctual or intentional when you create?

100% instinctual. It usually comes to me in a hyper-focus burst. I get into my creative cave and deep dive with no real sense of direction of destination point usually. I do feel, however, like I should be more intentional about it and its really something I wanna work on more.

Your project engages with difficult memories from your childhood. What made photography the right medium for you to explore and process these experiences?

That is a great question. As I speak about in my project, one of the hardest parts of accepting the experience is not having many visual memories from it. Which is extremely challenging to get to believe in myself, as a visually oriented person. I think that photography naturally came as not only fitting, but necessary for me to go through this process and fill in the missing parts of my story. In a way, being able to bring photography to this has been my way of seeing what I can’t remember.

The book follows a non-linear trajectory, which feels very fitting. How did that decision emerge during the creative process, and how does it compare to the way you’ve approached structure and sequencing with other projects?

I wrote the book as I wrote in my journal. It follows the exact order that my memories came to me.
As I said, it came to me as a burst. It took me a while to accept and believe in it. Even more to have the courage to believe that what I feel is real.

But I have that when it comes to sequencing and organizing the created material. This has definitely been the most instinctual project I’ve done so far. I usually take some time in the end of projects to be able to look at them from a 3rd person view, organize it into a narrative, etc. But this time I couldn’t really step away and see it from such a distance. It still lives in me too strongly and I think will forever.

What do you want people to think or feel as they flip through the pages of your book?

That’s a question I don’t have an answer to. I know that I struggle with imagining people feeling sorry or pity for me. That’s not really the point of it. Exposing myself like this has been a real challenge because feeling like the victim has been more of an anchor than something that allows me to feel good or move on.

I think I’d like to have people just see this as a personal challenge on trusting memories that are hard to be trusted by the mind but feel true to the heart.

Can you think of one piece of good advice someone gave you, and who said it?

One of the dearest people in my life, who’s been through something like this themselves, told me: “trust your feelings, if you feel them they are real and that is just enough”. This is basically what gave me the courage to see what would come out of my pencil if I sat down to write about it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it.

What is one thing you want to accomplish this next year?

I wanna build a more fulfilling life with what makes sense to me—loved ones, time, purpose—instead of what’s told by others should be the life to have.

What is one thing you hope to accomplish in your lifetime?

I wanna have memories and good stories to tell, no more than that.

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