Not-Alice in Wonderland

in Alice Not- Wonderland

by

Kyla Estoya

Facing your fears is a courageous thing to do and no one else can make the choice for you.

Back when I was a kid, I’d get super excited whenever they aired Alice in Wonderland on Disney Channel. It is one of my favorite Disney oldies and I’m always grateful whenever I meet someone who shares the same kind of energy I have for the film. Not so long ago, I talked to a new, interesting, and colorful character. She likes to describe herself as someone who is irrevocably in love with the vibrancy of life, probably the kind of person I’d go silly-dancing with on a golf course. Her name is Jaina Cipriano and she is a photographer and filmmaker.

For the first time in a long time, I found another person who loves the same movie. She told me about her works being rooted in 90s cartoons and the time her mother bought her a VHS copy of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland when she was eight years old. When the movie ended, she rewound it immediately so she could watch it again. Even though I didn’t know much about Jaina then—where she lived, how old she was, or which ice cream flavor is her favorite—I knew for certain that she would be a good candidate for a best friend. She told me she loved how everything in the film was filled with brightly colored animations dancing around in front of a dark and mysterious backdrop, and that since then, the idea of something vibrant existing in the middle of darkness is something she has never stopped thinking about.

When I work with models, I often see this mirrored back to me, that not only are they afraid of the same thing, but that they respond to my subconscious fears in a way that makes me feel seen.

Although it’s admiring how Photoshop gives us the opportunity to make something surrealistic and odd-looking, Jaina’s photos portray a different kind of surrealism. She loves working with her hands which explains the fact that she builds her own kind of Wonderland by welding and crafting her own sets & props.

Her recent projects, The Garden and Finding Bright, share the theme of being brightly colored while projecting a melancholic feeling at the same time. Jaina emphasizes that most of the work she puts out is based on recognizing and coming to terms with her own traumas and fears. For her, it is exhilarating how naming emotions gives both freedom and pain; so much mourning and loss to work through. The Garden shows how she was undergoing a time when darkness covered her entire world. “I had just come off of a dangerous and turbulent relationship and did not want to lie to myself anymore. I chose to dive head first into whatever was stopping me from living my life.”

On the other hand, Finding Bright is about her working in darkness. “Illumination can be more frightening than living in perpetual night. Facing your fears is a courageous thing to do and no one else can make the choice for you,” she said. Jaina understands that everyone is afraid of something and that most of the time, people fear the unknown. She shares that personally, she has a deep fear of painful experiences isolating her from other people. “When I work with models, I often see this mirrored back to me, that not only are they afraid of the same thing, but that they respond to my subconscious fears in a way that makes me feel seen,” she adds.

She recently made a film called You Don’t Have to Take Orders from The Moon, which was originally scheduled to come out this summer. “I’ll be holding a local Boston premiere for anyone interested but eventually it will be available online somewhere.”

Jaina admits that staying home in the past few months has affected her artistic spirit. When it comes to making projects, it usually involves packed days and human connection, and with the isolation going on, it’s a struggle for her to feel purposeful. She feels that there is a lot of pressure in the community to create relevant content and that she hasn’t processed the surreal pandemic enough to incorporate it authentically. “Right now, I’m just using art as a moving meditation. Start anywhere and get lost. It feels good.”

Although it’s tempting for artistic minds to put pressure on themselves, Jaina learned to not do this and let ideas arrive naturally and explore around them. She explains that objects and emotions take on a kind of sheen [on her] when they’re right. “It’s like how you just know which objects in a video game are ones you can interact with—that’s how it feels when I am hunting for inspiration,” she says. “I just open myself up and the work comes in.”

The deeper we can go into our dreams, the better we can know ourselves and the more grounded our lives can be.

In a way, I think Jaina and her works embody the kind of challenges and lessons Alice had when she was in Wonderland. To her, everything she does to her artworks is a way to learn about herself and connect to the world. “I think of what I do as a physical tarot deck, always reflecting back what you already knew. I am here to make your subconscious become solid,” she said. “The deeper we can go into our dreams, the better we can know ourselves and the more grounded our lives can be.”