Interview: Jaina Cipriano on “Trauma Bond”
OLIVE CANTOR
What drew you to photography and film?
JAINA CIPRIANO
Image-making was a big source of resilience for me as a child. Life was very confusing. I looked to photography to see what my life could be, who I could be. Since that was my window to the world, I think it was pretty obvious to me that I also wanted to create those windows. Once photography became less about capturing memories and more about creating narratives, I started seeing film was a way I could create bigger stories. Instead of one photo, I could have 24 photos a second. That shift–from moment-capturing to narrative-making–was so huge for me, both for photography and film.
OLIVE CANTOR
Have you ever had an idea or concept that originated as one medium and later transformed into another?
JAINA CIPRIANO
It’s an amalgamation. I've been working really hard the past few years to figure out exactly what it is that excites me. I've been creating a lot of inspirational archives, and in that process, I've realized that I'm really writing, photographing, filming, creating, all from the same childhood-cartoon-liminal-emotional place. So yes, the work informs each other, grows up together in that space.
OLIVE CANTOR
I find it very commendable that you speak so candidly about your life experience when contextualizing your art, and take mental health and trauma as recurring themes. How do the mediums of photography and cinema allow you to interrogate these internal spaces?
JAINA CIPRIANO
For one, it's safe. I get to call the shots. When you're recovering from trauma, finding healthy ways to exercise control can be really helpful. That part is so important to me: I get to decide what I’m doing, I get to decide when I want to stop, I get to decide how far I want to push myself.
I'm not in therapy, and people often tell me, “No, no, you really have to go there to figure things out.” And I'm like, “No!” I get to interrogate those things inside myself in the studio every day. Sometimes, if it doesn’t feel good, I get to decide not to go there. And other times, I’m like, “I’m really nervous about this. This all feels intense, and it’s a little hot in here today, and I don’t know if I’ve eaten enough food,” and then I unexpectedly have a blast and realize that was just what I needed.
There are so many different ways to heal, but I think it’s so important to be playful and to bring joy back into our bodies, to use our bodies for things that aren’t utilitarian or frightening or belonging to someone else. The studio is like a playground for me. I can go inside myself and get outside myself in a way that feels safe and, well…fun!
OLIVE CANTOR
You Don't Have to Take Orders From The Moon was released in 2020, and Trauma Bond followed two years later. What were some things you learned on the set of You Don't Have to Take Orders From The Moon that you carried with you into Trauma Bond?
JAINA CIPRIANO
I learned a lot about working with people. Madeline, who stars in The Moon, is the captain of her own soul. I don't ever have to worry about her. But for her role, she went a little bit method. Before we would shoot, she would, like, run off into the woods and listen to music. More recently, when we spoke about that role and that process, she said she might’ve done it differently. I asked why, and she said, “I just don't think it's healthy.” We’ve had so many conversations about how to play an intense role and caretake for those people around it.
Luckily, Madeline was totally fine, but moving into Trauma Bond, I was sensitive to the intensity of the film. We spoke so often about what people were comfortable with, and then had those conversations again on set. I was so nervous for the big ritual scene, but because we did so much prep and had communicated so much, I think it was really cathartic for everyone involved. It was surprising to me, how good everyone felt.
Selfishly, these films are a little bit about me. They explore some traumatic threads in me. I put them into characters and have them play it back for me. So it can be really intense. I would never, ever want to traumatize someone from my own trauma. That's very much the opposite of what all this is about.
OLIVE CANTOR
Madeline is featured in both of these films. How did your relationship come about?
JAINA CIPRIANO
In 2016, I was doing these parties in my apartment in Cambridge called Immersion, where I would decorate my apartment and bring all these photographers and models in and we'd all take pictures. Scout Cambridge did a little write up on it. Madeline, who I didn't know at the time, picked up an issue and sent me an email saying that she was doing a one woman show where she was dressing up like an angel and that she needed pictures taken. I took the photos of her as an angel and then I didn't hear from her for a couple years.
One day she was like, “Oh! We're doing this show at our house for Halloween, and we want to put your photos up.” They did this big show called At Home, where the different rooms in their house were activated with performances and music. I had been writingYou Don't Have to Take Orders From The Moon and I was really stuck on it, and then I watched her do this very strange performance in her bedroom and I was like, “It's you! You're the person who's supposed to be in this! Everything makes sense now!” And she was like, “…okay!”
OLIVE CANTOR
That’s such a Cambridge story. What do you find most fruitful about being a creative in the Boston area?
JAINA CIPRIANO
I like Boston because it has that weird, puritanical edge to it. I like being here and pushing on that all the time. It's frustrating, sometimes. There can be a fear to take risks. But I think that generations are changing, new people are coming in, things are getting weirder.
I also like that it's not huge. A lot of people tell me that I’m gonna move to New York, I’m gonna move to LA and I'm like, why would I do that? It's better to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond than a little fish in the fucking ocean. I feel like I can feel what's happening here, and I can really be a part of it.
OLIVE CANTOR
How do you know or feel when an idea is worth pursuing?
JAINA CIPRIANO
There’s the initial flutter, of course, but then I have to ask if I have enough fuel to make it happen. With photos, you can phone it in, because it’s just a couple of days of work. But with film, the idea has to really, really excite me, because it’s something I’m going to be in a relationship with. For years! You grow in a different way, you understand yourself and your practice in a different way, when you physically commit to something like that over time.
OLIVE CANTOR
This is a selfish question, because I’m hoping you’ll have the key to something I have no idea how to do. What are your strategies for identifying when a project is complete?
JAINA CIPRIANO
Listening often. The projects will tell you themselves if you let them. I always try and give my work some of its own autonomy. At a certain point, the work stops being about me, and it starts being about something else. Which is exciting, right? It takes on its own life, especially film, when other people come in and start putting their hands on it. Even if it comes from this seed of truth inside me, which I feel very protective of, you have to let it walk away a bit. It’ll tell you when it’s done if you just listen.
