Natasha Jynel Gives Us A Poetic Meditation On Her Creative Process

By Sam Eacott

Since 2012 Natasha Jynel has been the creative director of The Fashion Market AU, producing socially conscious fashion editorials for Stella Magazine. With her unique combination of skills in performance arts, production, writing and education she has established herself as one of Melbourne’s most exciting creative artists. Ahead of her performance as part of our collaboration with Yummy Crew for Melbourne Music Week Heaps Gay x Yummy, Natasha has given us a poetic meditation on her creative process.

“I am sitting on a couch, on a bed, on a sofa, on a box, on a … an inconsequential object in the center of the room. The furniture around me exists tentatively. Functionally. Unnecessarily. As if copied from a story book, the setting of the play less important to the mind then the words and colours of a moment that can only be captured by closing my eyes.”

Whenever we open ourselves up to love we have to accept that we are also opening ourselves up to heartbreak. My mother was the first person in the world I ever loved with my whole heart and my heart broke when she passed away after a three-year battle with Leukaemia.

Sitting by her bed as she went through chemo, wiping tears from her eyes when she cried … it didn’t make sense to me. That so much heartbreak could be allowed in the world. She passed away when I was fourteen and for years I refused to acknowledge my pain But, that didn’t make it go away. Instead it kept me at a standstill: filled with anger that mixed with denial and manifested as self harm, substance abuse and crippling anxiety. And all the while, life kept coming … filling me with heartache almost to the point of breaking. In 2014 I almost broke. But, I am one of the lucky ones. Because I am still here.

In her death my mother taught me a valuable lesson about life. Primarily that this is the only one I have. There are some days where it’s an accomplishment just to get out of bed … and I celebrate it as such. Because there could easily be another version of the story in which I do not exist.

My performance is a telling of that story, our story. My job is to carry the memory of those who have come before and to be the reminder that we are all on a journey. Together we hold this space for those who are yet to come.

“We are driving in a car, I am driving. We are both sitting in the back seat, but I can reach the pedals from there. I’d like to say that we are having a deep conversation, but I can’t hear the words as I drive. Just a series of highways and overpasses. And we are laughing about something.”

Natasha Jynel

Photo by David Pattinson