EYA
How do you leave a place that lives inside you?
EYA came to me in a dream, and she hasn’t let go of me since. I follow her.
She is a stuntwoman trapped in the final level of a game. She knows how to fall, how to take a hit, how to protect herself. She is trained to survive. Yet she cannot seem to find her way out.
Bringing EYA to Life
My journey with EYA began with liquid latex. I literally painted her into existence, shaping her physical appearance and creating her own protective armour. I was curious about how a character could emerge from a material, how a body could take shape before its identity was fully known. Her armour became part of who she is: a means of protection, but perhaps also something that keeps her trapped.
Together with sound designer and musician Diederick Brandsma, I began exploring EYA’s voice. We experimented with making internal bodily processes audible, using the voice to reveal what usually remains hidden inside the body. Through intimate sounds, singing, texts and songs, we searched for the different ways her voice could emerge. Sometimes it felt as though I was giving her a voice. At other times, I wondered whose voice I was actually hearing.
EYA is gradually taking shape. She has a physical form, a visual identity and a voice. Yet something is still missing: her movement.
An Alter Ego, a World of Her Own
EYA is also an alter ego through which I explore my own fears and experiences. The project began with my fear of driving, and with questions around control, trust, danger and the need to feel safe. Through EYA, I can approach these fears from a different perspective. She is the one who faces danger, who has to act, who must find a way through. Yet she is also the one who gets stuck.
The further I follow her, the more the work begins to move beyond its personal starting point. I find myself exploring questions of identity, vulnerability, protection and autonomy. What does it mean to feel safe? When does the need for protection begin to hold us back? And how do our fears shape the way we move through the world?
These questions lead me towards others: about the relationship between body and voice, between people and the technology that surrounds them, and between a creator and the character she brings into existence.