We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Borba D. Wright. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Borba below.
Borba, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned recently is to choose curiosity over fear. Growing up, I always leaned towards things that made me feel comfortable and really never experience different things. Upon recently graduating and moving out to LA, I’ve been forced to become accustomed to being out of my comfort zone which has matured me and allowed my confidence to grow. Taking risk is what really defines an artist, an I plan to continue on being on that path.
Borba, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
A professor of my once told me I’ll be fine in whichever career I choose because I am a “Go Getter”. And I agree with him. I’m currently working at Milk Studios as an Equipment Technician and it was a long road to get here. I started as an intern while maintaining a job as a busser at a Chinese Restaurant. It was my goal from day one to impress the company and while I was at the restaurant, all I ever thought about was “ making it” into the industry and that I would do anything to do that. Now that I am here, it is my goal to learn as much as I can to enhance my skills as a photographer and artist.
As an artist, I’m completely driven by the idea of becoming the freest artist alive. A broad statement, but to me it’s a dream to live as am artist who can freely create at my own will and still be able to survive. My end goal is to become a gallery artist and tell stories of what made me as a Brazilian-American from stories of childhood trauma, xenophobia, and hardships of being a minority who struggled to be accepted.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
When people really resonate with my message/intent. My goal is to relate to those who have shared the same emotion and feelings. Reminds me that I’m not alone and that others are going through it too. Really does motivate me to continue on. I appreciate that more than people saying “that’s fire/thats dope” or they’ll just send me 🔥🔥🔥. But any love at the end of the day is rewarding.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
My story began with my mother and biological father moving from Brazil to the United States in their early 20s. My mom was pregnant with my older brother when she flew here. I was born two years later in 2000, and my sister in 2001. The first memory I have was police lights reflecting on the ceiling. My mother told me that I talked to the police officer saying, “daddy hurt mommy”. A four year old completely clueless of what internal issues my family had been going through. By five, my grandparents (who also had flown over with us) decided that it would be cheaper to raise us in Brazil, so they took us while my mother stayed in the US to work. Ever since, my biological father has not been present in my life. I lived in Brasil from 2005 to 2010. From running around the streets playing soccer barefoot to flying kites, most of my joyous childhood memories come from that period. Yet also some of my most traumatic. Constantly moving, lost an uncle to gang violence who was shot 7 times 2 blocks away from us. I also lost 2 friends from the same circumstances. Such tragedies and what I felt from that time still are buried within me. My mother returned in 2007, and had met an American who she married a year later in Brazil. In. 2010, he decided to move my siblings and I to the United States and raised us as if we were his own children. He became the father figure we needed in our lives, who gave us an opportunity to live the life we desired. As an artist I owe much to him, but also to everything I experienced in Brazil. For everything I create, I pull from those emotions and memories.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.borbamind.com
- Instagram: @borbamind
Image Credits
All my work