Author: alicia elirena

• spark walk 15/09/2025

  

  

  

  

• „i feel therefore I am free.“

  

  On the 18th February is Audre Lorde’s birthday. And this year on her birthday I got to attend an event hosted at Pakhuis in Amsterdam „Surrending to Love“. I was standing next to The Base Book Space, owned by Lianne, selling books by and about Audre Lorde, as well as other POC writers reflecting on self love and care and what that actually means in the more contemporary lens of capitalism.

  Reading Audre‘s work as a teenager, she gave me a strong sense of comfort. She reflects on her life in her writings including her challenges, experiences with racism, cancer and the conversations with people like Adrienne Rich, James Baldwin and many more. She radiates bravery as she talks to people, such as in her seminars, that have very different views and attitudes towards racism, homophobia and injustices happening on a daily basis.

  I am more and more aware of the fact that what is important now is having difficult conversations, to be honest about your feelings, reservations, attitudes, maybe almost everything so that we can generate a new and liberating way of connecting with each other.

  I am not very honest about my feelings. Bluntly said. I often try to stuff my feelings with pillow cases to soften the blow of disappointing someone else. But this array of pillow cases isn’t comfortable anymore. For some reason writing helps me stay in the realm of honesty with myself and hopefully at some point my first sentence changes to another.

• writings from my green book #1 I’m more scared of people than nature

  19 / 03 / 2025

  I’m on my way to film wind.

  While I walk, I feel a strong emotion in my body. A wave of discomfort fills me up. I want to cry.

  Should I sit on a bench I see, to my right? No, I continue walking. For some reason I feel very out of place the more people walk past me. I keep hearing a shy voice telling myself ‘I don’t belong here’, making the urge to cry a bit stronger every few steps I take. As I write this I’m thinking to myself that I am overreacting, but it is something I feel.

  I arrive at the tree I wanted to visit already yesterday. In german its called a Trauerweide. I believe in english it is called the Willow tree. She is firmly glowing in the light breeze of wind present today. I take some steps around her. I want to film myself embracing her, but I craved being alone with her, with nature.

  A selfish thought maybe, but if we would be alone, my body would be calmer. They wouldn’t judge me as I embrace this fellow willow tree.. I carefully set up my camera, ready to begin.

  I wait for when there is no people passing by.

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  Why is it that I am more scared of other people than being alone in nature? An ongoing question I run in my head as I walk back ‘home’.

• my undergrad thesis (May 2024) Sewing; Together; A; Rhythm; finding healing through bodily movement

  starting this project from a place of fear,

  my work surrounded a process of relearning to trust and understand my body. .

  starresearchaliciakemp.pdfHerunterladen

  

• a walk with the spiders

  our group working together recently may have named ourselves the spiders..! we’ve been talking a lot about each of our individual knowledges creating a web of sorts – and translating this into the space we want to create for our exhibition at Kunstpodium T next year.

  as we talk and eat i learn so much and am left feeling highly inspired again,.. leading me to create this blog ^^.

  i’ve been struggling to write, and create out of a place of passion – leaving a space of “i have to” that i think almost naturally comes after graduating, at least from what i’ve gathered in the pool of art students. i learned a few things in myself as a maker who wants to make this their career. like the fact that there are so many ways to be in the field. whether that means your art giving you an income, or something completely different.

  within the spiders, we’ve shared our current emotional states, if we’ve made anything recently and how we want to continue our collaboration. of course this came after knowing each other a bit more and spending more time together, but for me this really helped in setting the tone of how to create.

  every time we meet, we have come to meet in a different city that one is based in, and have a program by them. it was time for rotterdam!!

  here some cute pictures of the day,,,

  

  

  the spark walk – basically a walk around anywhere you choose but with a certain intention. i like to bring my camera, a notebook and pocket or box of sorts (to collect things i find). on my walks i often look for shapes, compositions, light(ing), color that i find intriguing and will take pictures. sometimes i will also sit somewhere and gaze at my surroundings and write down keywords of what i see – this at times is food for writing / writing poetry.