09/09/2017
The article below is the inspiration behind my latest photo series and essentially it really highlights how I interact with my art and life in general. This article found me, at the beginning of the summer, while I was on the road (somewhere near Georgia or Alabama at the time) right after I had declared I would spend the summer learning to open my heart and practice surrendering. To learn to just be in every moment , right there , and to do it as softly as possible.
For me, I am obsessed with transformation and the human ability to change, to move on from what we have been brainwashed into believing about ourselves either through trauma or the stories we have spent our whole lives repeating to ourselves.
The past year of my life has been an exploration into surrender , state changes, breaking open and vulnerability. I've explored everything from ecstatic dance , to contact improv , reiki, and now bo***ge. There wasn't a clear path there , I knew I was following some intuitive breadcrumbs but basically everything I have explored has been off the impulse and the idea that it may help break down the barriers I have towards vulnerably , and truly connecting with others.
It wasn't till very recently when I listened to a Tony Robbins talk that I realized everything I was going after was essentially ways of creating " a state change". When we gain access to the ability to change our current state we then have access to redefine who we are and set a new pattern because the state change creates the void and the charged emotion that helps in grain the new pathway and to help us believe in its potentially lasting effects.
I like to delve into any area that is taboo or brings us shame and subsequently has the propensity to shatter us. I have always been a firm believer that there is gold hidden in the areas of humanity that we are asked to steer away from. Maybe that's just the rebel in me but I tend to believe it goes way beyond that.
For me freedom is the ultimate pathway for my soul. Freedom in expression, freedom in love, freedom in fun, freedom in emotion and thought. Ironically, it has been my biggest challenge throughout my life. I, as an artist , as a being, I have no desire to live within walls , self made or otherwise. Fear is a very limiting world to live in , there are just too many landmines.
Learning how to be soft is hard thing , it has always been easier to hide behind a facade of indifference or detachment. But to break open, to transform, we must be soft and open in the process, we must be willing to potentially be hurt or broken. That is always an inherent risk in living and being willing to experience raw life.
That is essentially the inspiration behind this project, what happens when we push ourselves into an altered state physically, emotionally, mentally. What happens when we break our state? When we gain access to the void and shifting our emotions? And in and through the process soften, open and remain in that state.
Currently still in the throes of this exploration and that comes with failures and breakdowns but as in all good stages of transformation the medicine is in the difficulties and always precedes the gold. Stay tuned.
In search of the deepest act of surrender, wild child Alexandra Roxo gets bound and discovers boundlessness with the ancient art of Sh***ri bo***ge.
