I Am Not My Body

About

In today's selfie society, it's all about the ego. Filmmaker Vanesa Abajo Pérez explores how we can experience life through the eyes of the reality around us, rather than our own. In her films she often uses this special change of perspective: she doesn't show people as typical main characters in a leading role. Abajo Pérez is fascinated by the poetic quality of the material world that surrounds man. What relationship do people develop with the objects they own or interact with? How is the human presence reflected in the world around him and how can it be felt?

In I AM NOT MY BODY, Abajo Pérez places this thought in the context of approaching death. To this end, she spoke to many sick people who were confronted with death. The filmmaker explored changing perceptions of both self and life. It is a sober and nostalgic journey on the border between the cinematic and the literary, in which the artist tries to capture the human. The texts in the film are by the Flemish poet Maud Vanhauwaert.

Vanesa Abajo Pérez (1979) is a filmmaker and multimedia artist. When her aunt became terminally ill, she made her first short documentary, LA CASA DE PIEDRA (2016), in which she portrayed her aunt through the eyes of the room this woman once inhabited. From that moment on, Vanesa devoted herself entirely to artistic documentary filmmaking. Her first feature film LIFE IS DREAM premiered in 2020. In 2021 her solo exhibition I AM NOT MY BODY opened at the Dutch Museum Tot Zover . Part of this work can be seen here. Vanesa is currently working on a second part of this project and on a new long documentary about the island of La Palma.