Yola Balanga. I drown in my own body

"Mother: daughter, what is immigration like? Daughter: it has been like drowning and at the same time experiencing different kinds of depths..."

I remember well this conversation I had with my mother in May 2023, when I had only spent three months in Spain, a stage in which, due to climate change, in addition to adaptation problems, my daughter had many health problems due to constant respiratory infections. Now that I have been in this country for almost two years, I can say that the struggles are almost the same, but I reflect on concepts such as emigrating, which, more than a physical and practical act, involves feelings and emotions that go beyond the idea of moving geographically from one place to another. 

"I believe that we are all immigrants until we find our place, where we feel we belong. It's all about the idea of belonging. In this sense I drown in my own body is a performance that portrays my understanding of immigration and what this black African female body feels about immigration based on my own experience, but which also has as a backdrop various ideas and concepts already known from different organizations and which are regulated by law, as in the case of Unicef and the UN, but in a broader sense, analyzed from other points of view, for example, in relation to what therapists and psychologists say about emigration, that it is not just a physical displacement, a displacement of our body, but a process of pain, physical pain, but also mental, emotional and intimate pain that marks a history, a life.” 

The actions takes part in Ellas crean festival.

With the collaboration of: