u/kentokwesa

Ever since I was young, I was raised in an environment that taught me to shrink myself, make myself small, and become a people pleaser. I became someone who constantly felt the need to make amends with people who had harmed me. A lot of that came from a deep desire to be liked, loved, accepted, and welcomed into a community. But that way of thinking had a profound effect on my self esteem as I grew up, and over time, it began to affect my creativity too. I found myself stifling my creative instincts as a performer and storyteller, and it hindered me from fully developing my artistic skills and exploring the person I could become creatively.

For a long time, I desperately wanted to get away from the environment I had been raised in. I was living in that environment well into my early adulthood, and I could see how the adults around me, many of whom were creatives themselves, had gradually given up on their creative dreams because of adulthood, financial pressures, and the rising cost of living. I understood why they had made those choices, but I did not want that to become my story. I did not want to reach adulthood and abandon the things that made me feel alive. I wanted to continue pursuing my dreams, and I came to understand that in order to do that, I first had to confront the things that were holding me back psychologically. I had to find a way to work through the mental and emotional blocks that had been keeping me from expressing myself fully.

The only way I felt I could safely begin doing that was through an alter ego. So I created this very colourful, bright, unapologetic character and costume that allowed me to step outside of the version of myself that had been conditioned to be small. The costume immediately attracted attention, but more importantly, it gave me a kind of freedom I had never experienced before. I could completely go crazy, wild, strange, and uninhibited with my creative expression without constantly worrying about being judged, because nobody knew who was underneath this gorgeous, beautiful pink costume. In a strange way, hiding myself allowed me to finally be seen.

For four years, I used this character and costume as a space in which I could grow, not only as a creative, but as a storyteller, singer, actor, writer, dancer, and ultimately as a human being who simply wants to exist creatively, perform, and pursue a life within the entertainment industry without being paralysed by the fear of judgement. Looking back now, I can see just how much I have changed during those four years. What initially began as a means of protecting myself became a way of developing myself.

And now, I am slowly beginning to see the rewards of that growth. I am seeing how people who identify in ways similar to me, particularly Black, queer, femme presenting trans people, can see themselves in my work, relate to the way I see the world, and find something familiar in the stories I tell. But I also know that those connections are not simply happening because of my identity. I have worked incredibly hard at my craft, and over the years I have developed the skills necessary to create work that can genuinely affect people, particularly people from my own community.

I am now excited to see where I go next. I have seen myself grow exponentially through the short films I have made, the short film I recently released, my screenwriting, the connections I have gradually built within the industry, and the small but meaningful steps I have taken towards establishing myself creatively. I am also watching my social media presence continue to grow as more people become aware of my art, what I stand for, and the story behind the work I create. Each of these things might seem small individually, but together they have shown me that I am actually moving forward.

And what makes that even more significant is that I am still currently living within the same toxic household environment that I have been trying to grow beyond. I am still living in the environment I wanted to escape from, but I no longer feel as though it has the same power over the person I am becoming. I genuinely feel that I will eventually be able to leave and build a life that is free from it. And in many ways, I feel that the character I created played a part in getting me through one of the darkest periods of my life. It gave me a way to express parts of myself that I did not yet feel safe enough to express as myself, and through that expression, I slowly became more confident in who I actually was.

So now I am incredibly excited to see where this journey takes me. I have spent the last four years using this character to discover what I am capable of, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens when I take everything I have learned with me into the next chapter of my life. I am especially excited to see where I will be in my late twenties, hopefully living outside of the environment that once made me feel so small, continuing to create, continuing to perform, and finally allowing myself to live the creative life I have always wanted.

Will Wants To Be A Giant Octopus - short dark fantasy film

My first short film made it onto letterbox

My first short film made it to letterbox

My costume gave me life altering super powers