We had the opportuntity to talk to experiential designer and filmmaker, Jaina Cipriano on her recent partipation in our annual public outdoor exhibition, Vision(ary): Portraits of Cultures, Communities and Environments. Her project, Empty Mirror, features a series of dreamy and playful self-portraits exploring tumultuous yet liberating episodes of coming-of-age, healing and identity regeneration.
An interview with the artist follows.
Follow Jaina on Instagram: @jainastudio
Jaina Cipriano is an experiential designer and filmmaker exploring the emotional toll of religious and romantic entrapment. Her worlds communicate with our neglected inner child and are informed by explosive colors, elements of elevated play, and the push/pull of light and dark.
She is a self-taught artist with a deep love for creative problem-solving. Jaina writes and directs award-winning short films that wrestle with the complicated path of healing. In 2020, she released You Don’t Have to Take Orders from the Moon, a surrealist horror film wrestling with the gravity of deep codependency. Her second short, Trauma Bond, is a dreamy coming-of-age thriller that explores what happens when we attempt to heal deep wounds with quick fixes.
In 2024, Jaina became the executive director of the Arlington International Film Festival. Her passion for changing lives through storytelling has found a home in the legacy the founders have created. Jaina is excited to foster community and creativity in New England in the coming years.
Jaina’s photographic work forgoes digital manipulation; everything is created for the camera. She takes an immersive approach to working with models, approaching a shoot like a documentary photographer as her subjects are let loose in a strangely designed space. Working with Jaina is often described as cathartic and playful. Her photographic work has been shown internationally.
She is the founder of Finding Bright Studios, a design company in Lowell specializing in set design for music videos and immersive spaces. She has collaborated with GRRL HAUS, Boston Art Review, and was a Boston Fellow for the Mass Art Creative Business Incubator and a finalist in EforAll Merrimack Valley.
Jaina, congratulations on being part of Vision(ary). Given the central theme of the exhibition, how do you think self-portraiture can address issues beyond the self in a way that it involves community and environments?
Absolutely. I forget my images are me.
I believe that our internal narratives shape the future we believe we deserve and that those narratives come, in part, from the media and art we consume.
Empathy is at the core of my practice and I think that by telling new stories that focus on marginalized voices we afford everyone the freedom and power that comes with seeing their own truth reflected back.
We change our narratives so we can change the world.
We are curious to know, where does the title of the project come from?
It’s about Becoming Yourself. Coming of age in the confines of the structures I did left little room for movement. I was always thirsty to know who I was. Growing up has been a journey of finding myself and filling the empty mirror in front of me. My reflection was built up over time. These works are an exploration of my childhood narratives through my grown-up lens. From sayings my father had (“I’m going to put you in a box so you won’t grow up.”) to bible stories that kept me up at night to fairy tales of salvation. How have they shaped my view of myself, the world and what I believe to be possible for my future?
How long do you usually work on an image? What is the longest it has taken you to make a photograph?
Usually only a few days. That is intentional, I don’t want to overthink or talk myself out of any creative decisions. I try to work by listening to my gut. Sometimes a set takes weeks to build. In that time I am not thinking about the photograph. The photograph can’t emerge until I can inhabit the space. The photograph itself never takes more than a few hours.
You share in your project statement how your experience coming from a background in a fundamentalist Christian cult made you feel separated from the world. How does photography help you navigate or reconcile this separation?
My childhood was mostly consuming media (books and movies) and daydreaming in the backyard. They were my best windows into the world.
As I got older, the camera gave me a reason to be somewhere. With a camera in my hand I made new friends and was invited to document their days. I discovered myself and the world through the viewfinder.
Those two things came together to create my practice. Now I build my own stories and make sense of them through my lens.
Creating these worlds through photography allows me to change my internal narrative. When life feels painful or strange, I can use photography as a form of psychomagic, creating safe spaces where I can open up, be present, and trust the process. It’s a way for me to connect with who I am without the heavy influence of my past. I am illuminating new areas of myself to eliminate the darkness of my fear.
Your childhood experience of playing pretend contrasts with your current practice of constructing and photographing your own spaces. How has this empowerment shaped the themes you explore in Empty Mirror?
It allows me to play, which helps me reconcile my past hurts and move through them into my wonderful present. Sometimes I connect to my childhood self and she just wants to make messes and dress up — and we do just that. There is empowerment in being able to say “yes” to my inner child.
Your interactive, participatory installations bring a different idea of the concept of community and environment. What motivated you to begin working in this fashion?
In 2017 I started Immersion — decadent, themed parties in my small Cambridge apartment. Some of the nights had rooms chest deep with balloons, dozens of cakes to step on or strange, blacklight reactive spaces. I invited women who were interested in exploring behind or in front of the camera and we we’re all set loose in this 360 set I built and lit. Something happened in those spaces – discovery, connection, it felt like magic. It felt more real, to me, than real life.
As we get older we lose our opportunities to play. I always want to make space for myself (and others) to play. Play can help us heal our emotional wounds.
Finally, what thrills you the most about the theatricality of fabricated spaces?
The possibility. It is truly endless.
I am also able to communicate thoughts and feelings that I cannot in the “real” world.
In a way, all photographs are memories. But playing in fabricated spaces gives me the ability to re-create my own memories in a way that feels authentic to me. Even if they don’t look the way they used to, they hold more emotional truths than my childhood snapshots do.
They reveal emotional landscapes that are deeply personal yet universally relatable. By creating these worlds, I can connect with my own emotions and experiences on a profound level, while also providing a mirror for others to see themselves and feel less alone in their intensity.
