My name is Lucy Mathews Heegaard.

I am a multidisciplinary artist who uses writing, photography, sound recording, and video production to tell stories of who we are at our essence, before we are shaped and shifted by our experiences in the world. At the heart of my work is the human voice, spoken story, first-hand accounts of life experiences. Identity and memory are integral to everything I create.

Once I’ve distilled a story, I intertwine music, silence, and ambient sounds to accentuate the impact of the spoken words. Then I create visual imagery that interacts with the emotional tenor of the narrative. By engaging multiple senses at once, these elements in combination offer the viewer an intimate, immersive, visceral experience of the story, an emotional impact beyond what any one element might conjure on its own. 

This video, produced as an assignment for a course in my Master of Fine Arts program, was a response to a prompt that asked us to explore an art form with which we had no experience to see what that art form could teach us about ourselves and our work. I chose dance because it was the medium that intimidated me most.

My intention, and my invitation to viewers, is for each of us to find our wholeness— because I believe our individual wholeness helps us find our collective wholeness, and helps us toward compassion and care for ourselves and for one another.

While my work is deeply influenced by Buddhist philosophers and Christian mystics, I don’t believe you need to know anything about either to feel drawn to the narratives I create. I hope my stories resonate with those who have no exposure to the philosophies underlying my work, as much so as with those who are far more expert in such wisdom than I am.