We recently connected with Cristina Planas and have shared our conversation below.
Cristina, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Developing confidence has taken on so many different facets and meanings to me over the course of my life and various occupations.
As a kid I travelled a lot and spent a lot of time in Spain where my parents are from. I grew up with the feeling of being from neither here nor there. This in-betweenness and exposure to different cultures through a lot of travel gave me a sense of adaptability, and a sense of confidence being away from home and out of my comfort zone.
Of course my parents also were very loving and supportive in (most) of the things I chose to do. They’ve always been there for me to fall back on and I can’t deny what a world of difference that makes to my sense of safety in the world.
Even growing up in a safe and idyllic place like Canada just offers a feeling of wholeness that is hard to deny!
After high-school I moved to London where I went to art school, worked as an art director at a fashion label, became a competitive boxer, and exhibited work as a visual and performance artist. Jumping through all these different hoops just gave me the experience of being outside of my comfort zone A LOT! I’m very much a “feel the fear and do it anyway” type of gal.
Over time my sense of confidence has evolved from something granted to me (through privilege and maybe a false sense of certainty at times) to one that’s been acquired. I also have had the experience of losing my sense of confidence more than once and having to rebuild it. I’ve always found it expressed and manifest in new and different forms.
At the moment it’s coming down to having a sense of trust in myself, my body, my feelings and my inner wisdom, even if at times it seems to be guiding me further from the things I think I want.. Opening and following my heart is where the challenge is at for me right now.
Self-esteem feels like a completely different can of worms and a bit more elusive. I feel it’s always possible to live and act in ways that bring you closer to your integrity. Sometimes this takes courage as you need to be able to tell the truth, first to yourself and then to others. But I’ve found that when I do ultimately it’s always for the better. It’s like it offers a new and slightly better reality. I find the truth is always available and in waiting of me.
The best way I’ve found to reinforce my self-esteem on the daily though is through caring for myself. Eating well, sticking to the routines and rituals the make me feel good, being gentle, grooming myself etc etc.. Becoming the loving, & nurturing parent that only you can become to yourself is what I’ve found so far. And asking for and accepting help along the way guilt free doesn’t hurt either 🙂
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a multi-disciplinary artist working across filmmaking, performance art, photography and other media.
I studied fine art in London, UK. During my time as an art student I took a 2 year hiatus to work a job as an in-house art director at Burberry fashion label. There, I was involved in the creation of high level advertising campaigns for beauty and fragrance. It exposed me to the world of high budget video and photography productions at a very young age, and definitely left a mark on my visual language and sense of criticality around the politics and processes surrounding image-making.
After returning to art school to complete my degree I got swept up in competitive boxing during my final year. At the time there weren’t that many legit boxing gyms in London training women. I trained with a small gym in east London and within six months had won my first championship.
That changed the course of my life as an artist. From then on my work became intrinsically linked to the body, to craft, to the live event, and to self-transformation.
Since then I’ve brought my experience as an athlete to the world of acting and performing. Creating auto-biographical performances, and researching a variety of healing and embodiment modalities across dance, acting and energy work has allowed me to intertwine my artistic and healing journeys.
For the past several years I’ve been tinkering away at a project titled DNV. Standing for Desire, Nostalgia, Vision. It is a project of expanded cinema, at the intersection of filmmaking and performance.
Through it I’ve been telling a series of intergenerational narratives & lineages from the Spanish post-civil war era intertwined with the story of Femme Brutale – the alter-ego and persona I created during my time as a boxer.
With the support of Canada Arts Council, Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Ludwigsburg Filmakademie in Germany, I recently had the opportunity to film the first sequence of my project as a short film. Working through the cinematic form, with a high-level production value, and working with actors as a director is allowing my to finally tie together over a decade of experience, across commercial, artistic, athletic and somatic work.
I am currently in the post-production stage of the short film, which will be sent out to film festivals and shown as a video installation in galleries.
I’m using this as a launching pad to raise funding to film the rest of the project as a feature-length work!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Qualities:
-Courage
-Vulnerability
-Joy
Skills:
-Listening
-Self-reflection
-Expressiveness & style
Areas of Knowledge:
-My body, dance, fighting!
-Visual literacy – composition
-Inter-personal and relational intelligence
I’d say once you’ve taken all the enthusiastic, open-minded, courageous, and wonderful leaps of faith that bring you to your first successes… learn to let it go!
Also accept that things take longer than you’ll want them to. They usually become sweeter as a result <3
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
I feel I flourish when I am connected to the qualities and strengths of the people and places around me. I have learned from everything and everyone, from teachers to friends, to lovers, to pets, to bullies to enemies to jobs, to hobbies. When I can directly name and thank their contribution to my life and to the world I feel complete.
The older I get the more I feel that life is speaks to and through me in every moment. It is equal parts wonderful and painful to feel and live through it all.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cristinaplanas.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cri.starna/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@femmebrutale___mirrored5017
Image Credits
Portrait:
Photographer: Ana Borrallo, 2024
Image title: Cristina Planas Portrait
Image 1:
Photographer: Vanessa Benitz, 2024
Artwork: Performance Ritual for a New Era 2024
Image 2:
Artwork: Performance Ritual for a New Era 2024
Image 3:
Photographer: Cristina Planas
Artwork : Absolutely bare, 2019 Inkjet print, 10.6” x 16”, 1/3
Image 4:
Photographer: Cristina Planas
Artwork : Loosen the muscles of his withers, 2019 Inkjet print, 10.6” x 16”, 1/3
Image 5:
Photographer: Joe Chalmers
Artwork : Untitled (YOU), 2018. Digital C-type print, 33.1” x 46.8”, 1/3
Image 6:
Photographer: Cristina Planas
Artwork: Golden Girls Championship Documentation video, 2018
Image 7:
Photographer: Ana Borrallo
Artwork: Golden Girls Championship Documentation still, 2018
Image 8:
Photographer: Cristina Planas
Artwork: Untitled (hands), Steel print object, Digital C-type print, 15.3” x 12.4”, 1/3
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
