"I really look at prosthetics in a very similar way of how I use everything around me — to sort of express myself." VIKTORIA MODESTA spoke to Brut about shaking up cabaret beauty standards and how her prosthetic leg makes her feel empowered.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00I hope that when people come and see it, that prosthetics isn't the only thing that's on
00:09their mind.
00:10You just caught us while we were getting ready for the show.
00:20It's less than an hour to go.
00:26Coming through this experience with my body just really made me have a different understanding
00:30about it.
00:31It made me think about the fact that everything that we create around ourselves comes directly
00:39out of our imagination.
00:40I've fallen in love with the idea of creating a conceptual sort of identity and I really
00:46look at prosthetics in a very similar way of how I use everything around me to sort
00:51of express myself.
00:52There are moments where I'm in the spike, where I feel like I'm the most superhero of
00:58myself.
00:59Do you think that women are always superheroes?
01:02I think it's important for me to aim to be the best version of you, whatever that means.
01:12That's always a motivation and I think that attitude is the superhero attitude.
01:18When you believe that more things are possible.
01:23I never really thought I would find myself on a stage of a cabaret.
01:28I actually had an accident at birth and it was a very ancient time for medicine at the
01:38time.
01:39But yes, after initially making some mistakes during my birth, they actually didn't show
01:46me to my mother for about five days and eventually when they did, they were surprised that she
01:52wanted to see me because they just wanted to send me to an orphanage.
01:57My mother kind of saved me at the time.
02:02But I think that the irony is that the isolation from the society and the people around me
02:10meant that I developed my own understanding of reality.
02:14I was so inspired by watching Disney, by Hollywood movies, by music videos.
02:22I loved the idea that we as human beings have so much potential to take charge of our life
02:29and just transform ourselves and transform also the world.
02:34I really kind of chose to have an operation and to remove my biological leg because it
02:44was really something that was a problem.
02:46I was able to take ownership of my body.
02:48I was able to just write a new story.
02:53The way we sort of obsess about valuing our body and tie it to our identity is so strong
03:02that I think it can be damaging because I spent five years sort of like having a pretty
03:10tough time in my life where the doctors thought that it was perfectly normal for me to just
03:15go home and that somehow having a damaged biological body part was better than having
03:22an artificial.
03:23I think a lot of the time people sort of ask me whether I see myself as an activist or
03:28a spokesperson for anything.
03:33I think that my style of addressing issues is really just to lead by example and just
03:43make the thing, show the thing, show the alternative way of thinking.