The performance was created from a dream I had. After a year of depression, I dreamt of a hummingbird flying from my heart. As it was an enlightening image, I decided to turn it into a work of art.

I started the project by writing a poem about the difficult year I had and my journey out of it. The use of words such as ‘jail,’ ‘pills,’ and ‘drown’ helped the audience to understand more deeply what I felt while words such as ‘breath,’ ‘air,’ ‘fly,’ and ‘free’ showed the audience how I managed to overcome my difficulties. I then asked the tattoo artist Fernanda Rodrigues, if she could join me in this work. She drew her vision of my dream (intended to become a tattoo), and together we created “Word Skin Mouth,” a performance video that merges poetry and tattoo art and documents the tattoo session in which she inscribes the art she created—in response to my dream and poem—onto my body.