My daughters are my primary source of inspiration. I am fascinated by the form, movement and the change of the female body. Movement and dance have always been fundamental in my life. As my father was an ethnomusicologist, much of my childhood was spent in the bush listening to the sounds of marimbas, mbiras, drums and song echoing into the expansive African night. The dust from the red soil slowly rising from the stomping of rhythmic feet felt so natural and normal to me but had you seen me in this childhood picture, you would have found it strange. A child born and grown up in a society that fully embraced and accepted her despite her visible difference was transcendent. I have always felt like an outsider and insider at the same time. I live in a constant state of foreign-ship and home is nowhere and everywhere at the same time. So, the African in me continued to flourish in Sweden, I found myself dancing as a child and dancing as a mother, and that spiritual DNA flourished and was passed on to my daughters, dance is simply part of our lives. As my daughters grew, I watched how they moved, how they held themselves, and their gift of being so aware of their bodies has inspired my art. I also witnessed my daughters’ struggle to fit in to their context, to fit into a society that was/is quite the opposite to how they were raised. They, like me, lived (and are living) a juxtaposed existence where the norms of their current society did not merge with those taught at home, thus creating a sense of cultural dissonance and loneliness. The confusion my daughters faced of seemingly looking like their peers, but not recognizing themselves in their peers, was difficult at times. Not until they grew older did my daughters speak out their appreciation of their difference in culture, thoughts, and actions. Today they carry their inner difference with pride.