Meet the Founder of The Artemisia Collective: 24-year-old Gioia Carraro Lopez (aka Joiah Luminosa) is a vocalist, music composer and aspiring audio engineer from Italian/Colombian background.
@__joiah____ on Instagram
“I come from Padova, a city near Venice in Italy, and grew up in a trilingual family, Colombian, American and Italian. Since I was very young I was involved in many things—I started with classical private lessons, entered the Cesare Pollini Conservatory at 11 years old in my city, and even did horseback riding. I always grew up with the feeling that I could do many things, my mom always pushed me, but eventually I had to choose and finally at 19, I started making my own music. I had some friends and acquaintances who showed me around, but I am mainly self-taught. I’m still trying to figure out my own sound, but I would say my music is mostly soul with house and electronic influences. Right now, I’m studying Sound Engineering in Amsterdam in hopes of becoming a sound engineer and a music producer, to work on my own art and collaborate with other artists. To be a professional in this you have to be patient, but I’m okay with that, because I know it will take for me to be able to fully express myself. You know, people underestimate how long it takes to truly learn how to fully complete a song from start to finish. You have to know how to make a song sound good in every PA system—the club, your phone, your computer etc. I’m so grateful to be here in Amsterdam because it’s such an inspiring place to be, and it doesn’t matter to me how long it takes me to learn if it means I truly get to become a master of my work. At the end of the day, for me, it’s about the emotion, the message, and the purity of the work.”
What helps you feel good?
“When I moved to Miami, I got into meditation; I’m making it a daily thing now. Meditation helps me take control of my emotions and actions. I’m a cancer ascendant, which means that the moon affects my emotions a lot. People affect my emotions a lot as well, you know...when a person is really angry or [emotional], it affects my own mood. So I learned how to detach myself—detaching my exterior world from my interior world. Also yoga, running and talking to the people I love helps a bunch! When it’s a full moon, and I’m just overreacting, I just sprint for half an hour and *boom*, I’m okay. And the ocean, yes. Anytime I’m near the ocean I just get in and settle into my bubble of no distractions, no thoughts. Overall water, meditation, running, yoga and family are the five main elements that really help me as a person.”
Why did you decide to start this collective? How did you come up with the idea/name?
“It was so random. I just woke up one day and remembered the name Artemisia. In school, I only had one lesson of Artemisia Gentileschi, the first female artist in history to gain recognition during the Baroque period. I remember the teacher handed us these blurry sheets of her and I was like, ‘Why are these so blurry? This is such a cool story!’ She was an artist that faced a lot of abuse, and honestly, I saw myself in some parts of her story. Back then, of course, it was much harder for women to get any position in the arts and society in general, and since then there has just been such a culture of competition for females. Coming from my background and from personal experience, I’ve seen so much envy and hypocrisy between women. I always thought that this barrier between girls wasn’t right. Instead of saying that we admire other women, we feel like we have to be jealous of each other. So I wanted to start this collective to build a community of women and womxn (transgender women etc.) that empower each other. I want the whole world to know that every story here matters, because we’re all unique and we all have different backgrounds and through this collective, we can help each other learn and grow. Us females, since the very beginning of time, have been put in a box and told to do this and that. But no. We are more than that. Why be jealous when we can help each other grow? We’re all in this together, right? Let’s not make this a competition, let’s make this a community.“
For more information about Gioia, check out her profile on Instagram