STEPHANIE Nuño

COLLABORATORS:

Florence Bellanastasia

Emily Le

Shilpa Narayan

Tasia Martens

 

TECHNICAL SUPPORT:

Aliya Griffin

Kayleigh Sandomirsky

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“…[T]he human story [is] infused with life and meaning, [is] illuminated, made relevant and understood best through the tangible immediacy of stories of individuals” (Cooper 53). There is a sense of care that is necessary in professing the stories of others. We can sometimes add colour and texture to our own stories because we own them. But when holding the narratives of others, we feel compelled to do them justice.

 

CODE RED explores honest and personal stories of individual struggle in an environment ill equipped to manage their intensity. This is a work that strives to share me holistically – masks and identifications packaged and presented as one being. Together, along with four others who started out as students, and have now become collaborators and friends, I set out to explore the things that are affecting our ability to be present. We dug into stories of vulnerability and struggle to create a piece that is saturated with truth. Here is a place where we are defying judgment. Selfishly, I needed to find a way to be more than the definition of my labels. These girls brought imagination and creativity while opening themselves by exposing their cracks without inhibition.

 

In my search for my true face, heart, and foundation, in an attempt at surrendering to presence, I am getting to know the woman behind the masks. I have pushed myself to explore my passion in a way that engages all of my parts – connecting my selves to create a new constellation that reveals my fears and weaknesses while igniting my creativity and nourishing my soul. Our trip, our falling doesn’t need to be destructively down, it can be falling laterally (Snowber). In my sideways falling, I have landed where I need to be (Snowber).