A Study on Falling

In 2020 I became a mother during the pandemic and transformed a persistent sense of falling into an artistic research project about body, weight, and motherhood. After an accident injured my foot, balance became both subject and lived reality.

My son was born right at the peak of the pandemic and I had a very lonely and difficult few months. 
I had a constant feeling of falling, in slow motion, touching the ground, then getting up again, in a never-ending loop. I just wanted to lie down and stay there, in silence. Just for a little while.

At the start of 2021, I began to turn this feeling into an artistic project. I wrote in my notebook: "Fall, roll, and return to the same place. Always in motion. A small point of contact bears the weight. unsteady yet upright. It trembles without collapsing, shifting back and forth in a constant balance."

Until then, it was just a feeling. I knew I wanted to explore the concept of balance... or the lack of it.
During those months, I gathered references, read, and observed my son’s movements as he started crawling and standing up. I wanted to work with dancers or athletes who had a strong awareness and control of their bodies.

At the end of 2021, one morning while carrying my one-year-old son down the stairs at home, I stepped on a set of keys left on one of the steps, and we both fell. In trying to protect him, my foot took all the weight and couldn’t handle it. The ligament that gives balance to the foot was torn.
My son was starting to walk as I couldn’t anymore.

At that moment, my project was put on hold. Or maybe it became real. I had to learn to move with just one point of support for several months.
The rehabilitation took a long time. After two surgeries, I didn’t get back to my routine until 2023, with a 3-year-old son and no pandemic.
Only then I realize that the injury was directly connected to my research.

My work has always been closely tied to the body: the body as form, the body in relation, the body’s movement possibilities. Gesture and detail.

This is a work in progress. A research project about balance, weight, load, and motherhood. It is made up of diverse materials: 35mm photography, digital photography, illustration, video captures, and plans to include videographic material.