Beloved community: visual artist Inma Herrera
Inma Herrera is a visual artist, an inspirational healer and a dear friend of ours. If you ever walked in through the red front door at the Healing Arts Center, you have passed the beautiful copper sign with our logo — a creation and gift by Inma. Thus, her presence is felt and shared by our whole community — each day greeting us as we enter and leave the space.
We had the honour of asking Inma a few questions, to which she shares deep insights about her artistry, healing and the mission of the future; physical connection.
Hi Inma! Who are you and how are you?
I am a visual artist from Madrid, Spain. I grew up in Getafe, a city in the South of Madrid, in a big house with my parents and my older brother. I remember being part of a big community, because even though my parents had moved from Granada to Madrid, and most of our family remained in Andalusia, our next-door neighbours were a second family to us. There were always people around me, a beautifully traced network of interdependence, collaboration and people helping each other. I feel grateful for that.
I have always been drawn to artistic activities. I was part of the school's choir for many years (with my brother). I also attended flamenco dance lessons, learned bobbin lace with my mother, practised gymnastics and, in my early teens, started to show my interest in visual arts through drawing and painting. It seems that I always showed interest in artistic expression and the body was involved in many of them. Kundalini Yoga came into my life in my late 20's.
My path as a visual artist can be drawn throughout the places where I have lived and studied: different cities in Spain (Madrid, San Sebastián, Betanzos), as well as Rome, Italy, and Stockholm at the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2014, I moved to Helsinki to study for a Master's Degree in Kuvataideakatemia. Nowadays, I mostly develop my artistic practice individually, however, since 2019 I am part of an artist duo with my colleague and friend Shirin Salehi. I have a studio in an artists' community in the area of Roihupelto. I live with my partner, Felipe de Ávila, who is also an artist. He is my greatest support.
But not only professional reasons made me stay in Finland. Helsinki Healing Arts Center plays a really important role in my life as for me is a sanctuary where I have explored and developed in-depth my personal connection to the universe of healing. I started attending Kundalini Yoga when Kuldip was teaching in Kundalini Jooga Helsinki. It was there where I began my training as a Martial Artist, where I learned Reiki and where I had my very first bodywork session as a client. As of today, I hold a Red Belt in the internal Martial Arts of Taiyo, I facilitate alignments and I am willing to learn other forms of bodywork. I am also a beginner practitioner of the Andean spiritual healing tradition, Warmi Paqo.
In the context of visual arts, I work “with” and “from” printmaking and create intersections through sculpture, video and installation. For those not familiar with the term, it is an artistic medium based on the principle of transferring images from a matrix onto another surface, most often paper or fabric. I explore specific processes and techniques to dig into the concept of imprint. This concept often manifests in manifold ways: it also often relates to the human body and the sense of touch. Creating helps me to connect with another dimension in which I explore unknown felds. I am able to analyze, deconstruct, and feel what otherwise would remain invisible to me. Something that is crucial to me is to understand and inhabit the place in which I display my work. I want to generate experiences that connect the spectator with the exhibition space. I believe we need to reconquer the physical dimension of it. Virtuality, having its advantages, is contributing to the segregation of corporeal experiences turning into a common disengagement with tangible encounters.
Photo: Luis Sartori
“Most of my projects take the form of installation because it gives me the liberty to combine all kinds of different elements that dialogue among each other. Moreover, it allows me to create navigating spaces where the spectator can dive into a universe in which tradition and technique dialogue with our contemporary way of recording imprints.”
What does healing mean to you, and how do you incorporate it into your artistic work — or perhaps, how do you incorporate healing into your art?
When we heal we are creating space within ourselves. That openness brings peace and flow. Healing allows our truth to manifest. It is about being coherent. What we think, what we feel and what we do are in alignment.
It is a never-ending process as there is always something new that will unfold. Layers and layers are to be peeled. I believe this is part of our mission in life: to learn from everything that blocks our development and transcend it. Part of the discovery of your personal power implies and requires healing. The seed we all have inside is pure potentiality. It is constantly pumping and whispering from within. We need to dig a bit deeper and listen carefully.
Process, change of state and transformation drive my artistic practice. In my projects, there is always a circular narrative that interconnects materials, contingency, actions and body. Looking back, I see that I have always kept a special relationship with my own body, and more specifically with my hands. They are my great teachers. They remind me that there is a distance, at least relative, between what I am and the outside world. They are the great go-between, which allows me to interact with that space that extends beyond my body. My work thinks over the exchange of information between the inside and the outside, and the hands are the means that facilitate part of that communication.
Touch is the primary sense we develop as humans, and somehow it abides as the core sense related to our emotions, being central in our lives. It keeps balance in our physical and mental health, and it is crucial to our survival as social mammals. In the physical realm, we communicate through touch with the human and non-human others. Like a sort of sacred epiphany of the actual fact of being alive, and as part of the process of understanding our own physical existence, we become vessels, a pure embodiment of the ungraspable present continuous.
I believe in the effects and results of somatic healing. The transformation I encountered has elevated my capacity of trusting my senses. It has made me a better artist and it has transformed my practice. It has cleansed the channels of communication between mind and heart. We, like an Axis Mundi, are receiving and transmitting the information. We process it by bias in our internal system and then express it. In my case, I express it through art. Art interrogates, confronts, analyses, deconstructs, destroys and rebuilds the word. I see clear analogies with the healing process.
What inspires you; in life, work, the world?
My inspiration draws from an eclectic variety of sources. Art, music, people, places, situations, practices... I must confess that I get inspired just by having books around me – it is very true. When I travel or I go home to visit my family, my suitcase is always loaded with new acquisitions. I have always been super interested in psychology and philosophy. These disciplines feed my curiosity about human behaviour and the meaning of existence. There have been two books and authors that really impacted my life: “To have or to be?”, by Erich Fromm and “Depression and the Body: The Biological Basis of Faith and Reality”, by Alexander Lowen. I strongly recommend them. Nowadays, I am into the writings of C.G. Jung, Eckhard Tolle, Byung Chul-Han and Mircea Eliade. Besides that, I am thrilled about learning more about Alchemy, which is influencing my work greatly. It binds many universes together: philosophy, psychology, art, science... I would even say that bodywork could also be explained and understood as an alchemical process.
I love listening to music and singing while I ride my bike. I often dance before I start my day in the studio, which unlocks my body and stimulates the flow of energy. Bodywork, alignment, Reiki, and Martial Arts invigorate every facet of my life as well. Particularly, the practise of Martial Arts has made my life extremely interesting. I look at the world with different eyes. My communication with the inner and outside world has been enhanced by exploring my fears and by connecting with the natural elements.
I admire the artistic work of Belkis Ayllón, Hilma Af Klint, Guo Fengyi, William Kentridge, Tatiana Trouvé, Richard Serra, Mona Hatoum, Doris Salcedo and Michael Borremans, among many others. The Spanish artist Eulalia Valldosera, who has always been a reference, is a living mystic and a healer who works throughout art. She is pure light. I am part of her drawing cycles where we train the vision and the management of energy. I am so fortunate for having the possibility to learn from her.
Besides that, I must say that brave people inspire me and I am lucky to be surrounded by many in my life: they are a source of motivation at this moment. Kuldip is one of them, who is a fantastic teacher, an exceptional healer and a very good friend. Our Grandmaster Hong Hu, Richard McGinty, whose heart cannot be bigger. They are both the embodiment and the living proof of the art we practice in the dojo. What is more, all my fellow martial arts students help me grow everyday, as well as my closest artist friends, Suvi Sysi, Harriina Räinä and Roma Auskalnyte. In addition to them, my working partner, a sister, Shirin Salehi, has demonstrated how enriching and profound is to create collectively showing mutual respect and generosity. And finally, I can say that I live with my greatest source of inspiration and best teacher, Felipe.
What are some of the somatic practices you love for your body & mind?
I love alignments. I think I could be on the alignment table for hours. When I am in town, I am lucky to get aligned once a week. Sometimes even more. I recommend it to everyone. I do alignments too and I am happy to share them with anyone who needs it.
When I want to work out and explore specific emotional blocks, or physical pain, I always go for a bodywork session. It is really powerful.
When being at home, a warm shower allows me to let go of heaviness. I find Kundalini yoga a great tool to unlock general stiffness, move the fluids, stretch muscles, and ultimately, activate my body and mind to expose the senses to the spiritual dimension that constantly surrounds us. A little meditation and a daily prayer nurture the soul. If I have the chance to sing it, then I am in my element.
What are you dreaming about for the future?
I have strong hopes for a world in which we all have access to a healthcare system that more and more looks forward to helping us understand and treat the root cause of illness, not just treating the symptoms. The body never lies. I dream of the possibility of listening to and acting according to its signs. Obviously, that requires openness from us and being willing to look in the mirror. Let's create a quiet and respectful environment for that!
The artistic practise I carry out is my way of grounding and understanding what goes beyond the material. I spect one day societies will turn their looks at art with less profane eyes and I hope it is with the need of understanding their cultural heritage and reconnecting with their spirituality. Art has always been there for that. Artists are thinkers, cultural producers, and mediators. We play a role in society. I consider there is a place for artists to touch sensibilities and instigate social changes. We generate cultural, economic and symbolic capital that mostly goes to other hands. Most artists survive under very precarious conditions. I hope that changes.
I am concerned about the cognitive disturbance caused by technology and virtual platforms. I experience how every day I get distracted from being in the present moment and the physical realm. The illusion of being connected is misleading. We are becoming islands. People suffer from loneliness and lack of physical contact. I think our mission for the future is to reconquer that space that always belonged to us.
