Re-creating myself: art and diving to uncover my inner worlds
Visual arts, diving and freediving to re-create myself: an inquiry into my inner worlds that feeds the way I bring people together.
© Fabio Balli
Context
In 2023, I felt a call to re-create myself and went on a retreat in Asia. I became aware of how much I had sought mental stimulation, and how much I had sacrificed my inner life to outline a dreamworld, neglecting the world of dreams. After a midlife crisis and a long period of exhaustion, I wanted to understand the tensions my body had carried since childhood, rather than keep compensating for them.
Intervention
I was able to recognise and welcome facets of my intuition and imagination that I had put aside. I started exploring the multiple dimensions of consciousness by paying attention to bodily sensations, with the support of three exceptional art therapists. The way I create visual arts reflects the way I bring people together: I first set up the environment, taking care of the way energy and resources flow, then leave space for (co-)creation to emerge. Under water, scuba diving gives me time to explore, and freediving opens me to unique bodily sensations and invites me to break free from mental tensions. Since 2023 this practice has become a documented inquiry: 174 hours of somatic art therapy following Johanne Hamel's method, in which you draw your silhouette to map your sensations, then 500 hours of Systema, a martial art that trains returning to calm under stress. Daily logs, body maps and measurements repeated every year make up the corpus.
Ethics and safety
This inquiry concerns one person, me, and does not establish cause and effect. I do not offer therapy: bodily practice with other people is a matter for trained professionals.
Observed effects
- Visual works, including Colère (Anger)
- A research-creation (research that works through making an artwork or a game) project in preparation, depicting the sensations felt while exploring groundwater
- Breath-hold with full lungs from 79 to 100 seconds in nine months; in a lake, from 12 to 26 metres deep between 2025 and 2026
- An article to be released as a preprint, with an annual follow-up protocol
A tool for understanding myself
© Fabio BalliTransactional analysis
A reading of relationships, emotions and power games, so that each person can take their rightful place.
Theory by Eric Berne. EATA basic certificate, 1,000 hours.
- Research principle
- Plural realities
An artwork and freediving
© Fabio BalliColère (Anger) 
© Fabio BalliFreediving
What it shows
I create a reflection between the flow of sensations under the skin and the flow of water under the earth. I want to raise awareness of the source of life. Diving is a privilege: to get back to our nature and explore a universe beyond day and night. Lasting change also goes through the body: listening to your tensions rather than silencing them makes you more available to others. I bring this attention to my work: to breath, pace and each person's limits.