Xelda Jara

The Cage

How many of us suffer from being different? For years we feel locked in existential cages, trying to belong, obeying and adapting ourselves to the wishes of others to avoid criticism and/or discrimination. Discovering who we are or what we want for ourselves is a slow, difficult, desperate, and sad path. We move back and forth between light and darkness, we fight doubts, we convince ourselves that we are fine and many times we destroy ourselves with pain over and over again. Some of us manage to get out of these self-imposed or other people's cages and put on masks. We appear happy to avoid explanations or useless lies. Struggling to get out of toxic relationships and unnecessary self-punishments. It is a process, a construction to one day get out of those cages and those masks and decides to come out into the light and fly like free birds. We choose to be.

This work has a previous creative process as a background made in 2020, but this opportunity to minted in Zora was resignified with mixed media (digital drawing, collage, and artificial intelligence) to convey the same message that tries to represent the path of struggle, belonging and identity of the LGBTQ+ community.