NEW YORK EXHIBITION

I cannot believe we made it.
I don't know how I feel.
I think it's going to take me a minute to understand everything that has happened.

I can tell you that I feel very content.
I can tell you that I feel very proud.
I can tell you that I have overcome a lot of things with myself to be able to do this.
So, it's a complex question, isn't it? Why did I do this?
I mean, everything comes from the same place. 
The clothes, the photos, everything that you see in this exhibit, it all comes with one purpose.
The purpose of inspiring people.
My purpose with everything that I'm doing today, which is why I feel so content with what I'm doing, my work is to inspire people to break away from that box.
Understand that we cannot hide.
We are here to take the space that we own.

So, that little text that you've got there reads something like this.
This is a letter to my mum.

Dear mum, you always told me stay in your chair.
You never really explained much of the meaning, but I understood that it is my responsibility to take care of my chair.
Thank To love it, accept it and honor it.
To never shame it.
To always understand that it is perfect as it is.
To let it change with the years.
To rebuild it if it breaks.
To carry it with me even when it becomes heavy.
To let it be seen. To never lose sight of it.
And above all, to never let anyone sit on it.
Mum, you never really explained, but I understood.
I'm basically that chair.

I think sometimes when we find ourselves in the middle of deciding or having to choose or having to do something, sometimes we don't have to decide, we just have to sit and wait for things to come our way.
Before coming to New York and doing this series with the chairs, I knew I wanted to, because it's all about the body, isn't it? I wanted to have this object as an extension.
Because if you see the photos, you understand that chairs are an extension of ourselves.
I want to inspire people.
And by giving tools like my mum gave me, I really love the idea that they came and they took these tools with them to then, you know, apply them.

I think there is a lot of confusion with this photo and I love that confusion.
Because people think that I printed my body on the clothes.
But no, no, no. It's not that.
It's just digital work.
This actually came through exploration. I was trying to understand this idea of our first skin, second skin and the space that is in between.
Because there is something that I think is quite intentional.
The clothes are designed to have enough space between you and your body.
And that space is where we are allowed to not judge ourselves.

I think we can all collectively agree that this is beautiful. All of it. With the imperfections,
with the cracks, with the dirt, with the patina. How is it possible that we can all collectively agree that this is a beautiful object with all its life?
And all the things it's been through.
How can we all collectively agree that this is a beautiful object?
Beautiful object that was never intended to be beautiful. It was made for a completely different purpose.
How can we all collectively agree that this is a beautiful object?
But then, we will look at ourselves in the mirror and the reflection that we see, it's always far and away from the idea of being beautiful. So how and why is this a beautiful thing to look at? But then, our bodies come with so many self-judgements
and unkind thoughts.
I think we need to start changing our conversations in the same way that we will accept that this is a beautiful object.
We have to accept that we are simply beautiful. Once we see the beauty that we have, then, only then, we're going to start seeing the beauty around everybody.
The less I judge myself, the less I will judge others. And the less that I judge others, the more space I have to just simply be.

So I asked myself the question, why am I doing all this to start with? And I went back to, like, what's the reason? Like the reason,
like the bottom line of why am I doing this?
And yeah, I said before, but it's all to inspire people. Yeah, this is me when I was 18.
My boyfriend at the time, Raul, took this picture of me coming out of the shower.

He snapped this, and three years ago, he sent me this photo. I'd opened it in my phone, and as soon as I opened it, like, I thought, like, I was so mad at him for taking this photo, because I felt so vulnerable.
I felt like he, without asking, took too much space. And I think I understand today, because I basically was so, so self-conscious of my body.
This is the reason why I'm doing everything else with first skin, second skin, is the fact that me at 40 can see this photo and accept and understand the beauty in it. But back then, I never, I never saw it.
I looked at this, and I said, all right, all right, all right, I think I'm understanding something. So I went to a mirror, took my clothes off, and I stared at myself completely naked. And I said this to myself, what me at 60 will think of me of today at 40? And no-brainer.
Me in 20 years' time, it's going to think that today I'm beautiful. I set that day as a mark. If today I can see it, then I need to work on being able to see it.
And I need to work on having a kind conversation with myself, because, yeah, time is going to come, it's just a transformation that we need to embrace, and we need to love, and we need to accept. 
Then I said, like, how could I, how could I, you know, tell the world about this?
How could I express myself in a way that people will somehow reflect on and practice?
So I call this the sunset.

This came through the idea of the first skin and the second skin. I wanted for both to be seen, the silhouette of the body be seen through the fabric.
Someone asked, what was the music we were playing?
And I love that question because there was no music. Everyone is basically dancing to their own beat.
It's kind of powerful and very calming in a way.
I love how those two skins, they come to be just one. And I think these photos embody
thoughts like nothing I've ever done before. It's very transcendent for me. It holds a lot of emotions.
Very pretty.