Meet Giorgia Valenti

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Giorgia Valenti a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Giorgia, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
By traveling and losing myself. The more a person travels, the more they mingle and flirt with the idea of not belonging somewhere, of being out of place, of being clueless about themselves and others; the more they allow themselves to process what they are living for.

Apart from the natural impulse that I had towards the arts since I was a little child, I developed (and am still developing) my human and artistic purpose of making feel people like they are not alone in how they feel, in their imperfections and insecurities even through the seas and national borders that divide us. Different cultures, traditions and identities are beautiful and intricate in their diversity, but are essentially also tied together as just one: the culture of human behaviour. There is no better way to explore that and show that than through the arts, because art is judgment free, art is exploration, art has no rules. And it is in these kind of environments that discoveries, mistakes and growth are found.

My travels started when from where I was born, Italy, and moved on to India, the USA and Latin America. I feel like I belong everywhere and nowhere, I relate to everyone and no one, I absorb life lessons and different humanities by being inside and outside multiple realities. These reflections are a life journey, and my purpose is to change and flow with where they take me and how they will influence my impact on the world with the stories I will tell.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
As an immigrant artist without a home, I find community – and myself – as I go (grow). I throw myself into new environments, I adapt, I belong and I realize that I am nurtured by this constant process of discovery. Bouncing between Italy, India, the USA and now, MAYBE Argentina, I find that the core of my being, which is my empathy, only grows when I uncover cultural bridges between me and other people. I get so curious about them: where are they from? What do they keep in their fridge? Why do they think this way and how is it that I coexist with this person in the here and now? This place of curiosity is where I am most creative and open. I am made up of puzzle pieces that are scattered, and these pieces drift and drift until they are caught by somebody else, somebody who makes sense of them and puts them together to create something we call art.

For this reason, in 2019, I created a theater company with other immigrant women artists: Et Alia Theater. Our rootlessness fed our art and friendship and, while we pushed through the rejection we received from the intricate American bureaucracy system, we discovered that we slowly created a community of beautiful humans who we feel accepted by and completed us. We did this through our shows, our gatherings and our workshops. Our mission is similar to my individual one as an artist: We bring together an unfamiliar combination of foreign and immigrant voices and offer them a space to explore and interchange their multicultural perspectives. We use our art to expose the obstacles experienced by immigrant women and empower our community. As a company who is committed to blurring borders, Et Alia is not limited to a single form of work and is open to creating conversations through different styles of theater. We strive to make the out of place, a place. Et Alia is Latin for ‘And Other’: we create art for the other, by the other, and about the other. We are Giorgia Valenti, Maria Müller, Ana Moioli and Luísa Galatti.

If you wish to do so, you should check out our website where you can sign up to our newsletter and/or follow us on Instagram. We are constantly building a worldly community and have multiple projects coming up as well, including a reading of a new play and a documentary play in development. https://www.etaliatheater.com/

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Trusting your gut, not being afraid to throw yourself into new adventures and following your heart, knowing that there should also be a balance between the last two things I mentioned and being rational and smart in your decisions.

All this said, I am still very much developing these skills myself. It takes trial and error and I am now 100% aware that there is no way of mastering life, there are only ways of playing it.

Trusting my gut has started to save me time and energy that I can put into my own growth and projects rather than other distractions and ideas that do not necessarily align with my visions at this moment. It has also kept me away from unhealthy environments and has developed my ability to say no (which is SO HARD) and trusting myself in my decisions.

Following my heart and throwing myself into adventures has led me into A LOT of growing pain and immense joy at the same time. Traveling, falling in love, taking risks, leaving things behind temporarily to embrace new places and people, going back to my roots, revisiting memories, getting heartbroken etc. may have all seemed things that would take me away from my purpose of making art and from following my path towards a successful career. However, (and I learnt all of this only with time, later on), they are SO ESSENTIAL to personal growth and ultimately, make me a fuller human being and therefore a more complete artist. These adventures and saying yes to them with an open heart have taught me how to say yes to change and accept that every experience, good or bad, is part of the ever shifting journey.

All this said, I am also a believer in sometimes stopping and listening to your rational side as well. Passion is strong and overwhelming, it can really drive a person and make them curious and excited. While all of these are beautiful things, sometimes it is also valuable to sit at a desk, draw a mind map, a vision board, look at one’s bank account, make some lists and balance out the next steps. This will bring a healthy equilibrium to one’s discoveries and journey, while maintaining focus and determination.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I am constantly looking for diverse and international partners to collaborate with! My community, which is made up of my family members, my artist friends, my non-artist friends and other incredibly complex and diverse people with stories to tell; are what keeps me going. They inspire me, support me, guide me, push me, help me, and are constantly passionate about my own growth and how they can swim along in it with their own ideas and lessons.

I am currently in the very beginnings of working on a specific project surrounding the teachings of consent to children by parents and how this is influenced and related to family dynamics and culture. Like my past projects, it will be an international exploration and research. I would like to interview people to then create a collaborative theater piece.

So, to conclude, if you are someone who is open, supportive, motivated and interested in the theme above or in connecting with me in general; I would be more than happy to listen to you, know you and understand how we are similar and different in our humanity. My IG is @giorgiavalenti8

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