Exploration: II is the second piece of my Exploration serie.
It is a CGI video artwork exploring the resistance to healing, that reluctance to let go of a wounded version of ourselves, even when doing so would save us.
No matter the urgency, no matter if we are drowning, we hold on. We have lived alongside this self for so long that we have learned to romanticize it, to build beauty around its presence.
Letting it go feels like denying it, abandoning a part of us that perhaps needed love the most and that we just can’t bring ourselves to leave (too).

In the video, the subject lies still in a cave filled with crystals. She does not move. Is she sleeping, or is she dead? How can’t she feel the water surrounding her? In truth, she is in that space beyond exhaustion, where the comfort outweighs any danger.

The white butterfly, recurring symbol in my work, represents peace, a healed version of us, or at least the one that let go of all pain and resistance. That’s the subject we follow with the camera while she gets deeper into the cave, determined yet hesitant. When reaches the last rock, water is everywhere. The butterfly panics, flitting from side to side, she wants to stay, she can’t, she tries, then retreats, unable to go further, she needs to save herself and leaves.

The video ends before the cave is fully submerged. What happens next is left to the viewer, most likely we know, in the bottom of our heart, how the story ends. And it will be different for everyone: Did the butterfly’s presence motivated the girl to run away? Did she got up when almost underwater? Or did she choose to remain beneath the water, unwilling to leave the beauty she had created in her crystal sanctuary?

This piece is the culmination of a year-long exploration through writing, photography, and visual art, an intimate meditation on the paradox of wanting to heal, yet fearing what we might lose in the process.