The Moment Before the Jump is a research project on the point where the contradiction between being oneself and belonging stops being bearable: the moment a person feels defeated by life.
It starts from my own. In 2020 I attempted suicide. I did not want to die. I wanted to stop living a life that was not mine.
The project gathers the stories of other survivors, so that it becomes a conversation rather than a monologue, and translates them into works. It does not offer a way out. The works make the contradiction visible, then leave viewers free to decide what to do with it.
Its final form is an immersive installation, where the works sit alongside the material gathered along the way, conceived to travel as an exhibition on mental health.
In 2020, during the pandemic, I felt so suffocated in my own life that I chose to quit it. I was on the edge of a cliff, thinking it was Game Over.
I did not want to die. I wanted to stop living a life that was not mine.
The first part of my life was built to fit into society: a great career, very good money, a family. A beautiful life that felt completely fake. So fake I was suffocating.
So I turned it upside down. I left London for a small town in Spain, left my job to become a coach, rewrote the way I lived my parenthood. I did everything I was told would make me happy, and I was happy for a while. Until I felt suffocated again.
In both cases, being coherent with my choice felt like giving up a part of myself.
This work is the moment just before. I remember walking slowly to the top of the cliff, at peace, as if my choice were definitive. Game Over. Then, at the edge, my body contracted and pulled me back without my mind giving any order. There was still some life in me. I wanted to live, but I was done fighting.
So, Game Over again. Game Over to trying to fix myself. Game Over to trying to be completely coherent. Game Over to trying to understand why sometimes I need a mask, as much as I need to take them all off.
I never add words to my paintings. For this one I made an exception, as a reminder to stop fighting. The circle was pure instinct. I guess it reads: you are whole now.
Can I speak about a suicide attempt without making it a performance? The only honest way I found was to go back there myself.
I used an AI model as an interviewer, someone external to take me back to that moment and make me ask: why did I decide to quit, how did I stop, what changed between the moment before and the moment after. I cried. I stopped. I started again.
Then I went to the studio and let it out on canvas. I expected a forceful piece, or a very dark one. A circle and one word came out.
Someone told me that a single word is not art. I agree. Game Over is only the final step.
What you do not see is the exploration that led to it, and how it was documented: videos, diary pages, tissues full of tears, and the conversations with other people who lived something similar. The challenge now is how to make you part of the whole process.
Now the step I am a bit scared of: asking other survivors to tell me their story, so that the project becomes a conversation rather than a monologue.
The works, together with the material collected along the way, will form an immersive installation.
The project is at an early stage. After the first work, I am gathering other people's real experiences. There is no structure or institutional support behind it yet, and I prefer to say so openly.