Meaning of life Manifesto

On meaning, Offering, and the Art of Living in the Question

What is the meaning of a life devoted to making?

A quote often attributed to Picasso, though more likely adapted by writers such as David Viscott, has followed me across continents:

“The meaning of life is to find your gift.
The purpose of life is to give it away.”

Whether Picasso said it or not matters little to me. I think it’s evident in his art. In the way he reinvented form, fractured perspective, and poured his entire life into making. The sentiment lives inside his work. It’s embedded in the restless generosity of his creations. The ethic carried by the idea itself resonates profoundly with me at the stage I’m at in my life. Our gifts are not possessions but offerings, and the true purpose of creative work is to be in service to others.

This idea has become the spiritual backbone of my artistic practice.

Art as an act of service

To strive, even though it’s not always tangible, to make work that serves something beyond the self.

To serve wonder,

disruption,

connection,

community

and the courage it takes to be seen honestly.

My training as a yoga teacher has shaped this. Yoga asks us to meet each moment with awareness, humility, and non-attachment. The performance room asks for the same thing. Both are disciplines of presence. Both require listening. Both insist that transformation is possible.

This is why I work: to create spaces - however temporary - where people can encounter themselves differently.

I do not create to impress.
I create to connect.
To disrupt gently.
To invite someone closer to themselves.
To momentarily dissolve the distance between human and human.

Throughout my BPA training, I have learned that art lives in the tension between discipline and surrender. Between knowing and unknowing. Between stepping forward and stepping back.

And so my manifesto is simple:

I believe in work that listens before it speaks.

I refuse to create from ego, spectacle, or cleverness without heart.

I commit to generosity as my method,

rigour as my structure,

and presence as my compass.

My practice is shaped by collaboration.
By the courage to say “I don’t know yet.”
By the patience to discover together.
By the ethics of care that define the rehearsal room I hope to continue building.

I recognise that I create on stolen land, and I commit to practices grounded in respect, reciprocity, truth-telling, and cultural humility. My work is indebted to the knowledge-holders, Elders, teachers, and collaborators who have shaped me — and I carry their teachings forward with responsibility.

As I move into the next phase of my artistic career — directing my first full-length work with a residency at The Blue Room Theatre, presenting at Summer Nights, and continuing to deepen my screen and stage practice — I anchor myself in the same questions that brought me here:

What does this moment ask of me?
How can I meet it fully?
What can I offer that is honest, necessary, and alive?

My manifesto is not a fixed doctrine.
It is a living commitment — porous, shifting, open to the unknown.

But it always returns to this:

I will keep making work that asks real questions.
I will keep creating spaces where bodies can speak.
I will keep collaborating boldly and tenderly.
I will keep giving my gift away.

And above all,
I will keep living in the question.