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Meet Creative Duo Alekya & Priya
Brand Designer Priya and Voice Actor Alekya are two incredibly sassy friends whose relationship not only uplifts their personal lives, it also generates encouragement and perseverance in their creative pursuits. As BFF's, Aleyka and Priya drive forward one another's careers with comfort, care, and creative support underlying the time they spend together. Having met Sassy host Bethany in the South of India, she couldn't resist hearing more about Alekya's journey into being a voice artist and actor, and Priya's path to being a brand designer and artist.
Having carved their own way into the arts, both Alekya and Priya cherish the way community plays a role in creating open networks for others to find support emotionally as well as artistically. We hear them discuss the way they have overcome societal barriers, using fear as courage to move confidently in their careers, and the motivations behind their personal projects for holistic artistic care.
Creativity as Career
Alekya explains how "I try to find beauty in places and put them in art". As a professional voice actor, Alekya brings the sound of characters to life be it animation, dubbing, or voice-overs. Having been a radio host and a writer in the past, Alekya is now focusing her attention on writing scripts and acting in films. "Some day I want to act and tell stories in any form". Discussing her path, Alekya explains how " my journey was rocky. Coming into films is not a straight line...there's no road map, it isn't easy. I was doing whatever I could do in my power letting the creative juices flow". Over the years she managed to build her network and explains how "I love it, to stand in front of the mic, acting my lungs out".
Priya is an artist and brand designer, focusing on "I think God is also a designer, the way they created the universe". Having studied architecture, Priya turned her attention to graphic design before focusing in on brand design "For me it is bringing up a child - if a business come to me, I teach them what to wear, how to talk, how to perceive yourself and how do you audience perceive you." With the hope to get into sustainable architecture, Priya hopes to combine graphic design with spatial design to create immersive experiences for people to provoke emotions when they walk into a space by playing with their senses.
Friendship and Art
Alekya describes how "Priya has given me a lot of oomph - I'm an ideas person and she's about building structures and systems to execute through practicality". This is something Priya recognises as being "a good balance... because I tend to analyse everything I say, do and think, whereas Alekya brings this fluidity, encouraging me to break that".
Someone somewhere believed in us and told us to do something and we're open enough to try this new path - Priya
Both of them credit the people around them who encouraged them to spread their creative wings and look at new possibilities beyond what they may have considered possible. Priya explains how "someone somewhere believed in us and told us to do something and we're open enough to try this new path." Being bold enough to move into the unknown was an act of self-belief and trust, building successful freelance careers from a perspective of "if you help yourself, God will help you even further".
Independence and Individuality
For Alekya, she points out how her journey to living a full and prosperous life was "a huge fight and a challenge to break all the shackels and live by myself". Having moved home between jobs, she felt her world becoming smaller with options becoming limited to parental or spouse dependency. In that moment she tells us how "I decided I would never not be working again. I am not going to be dependent on anybody because when you are, they think they have the power to guide your life and throw orders at you. I don't want to loose my individuality ever." This has led Alekya to become even more resilient, fostering a determination that, whatever happens, she will have agency over her choices and opportunities.
Right now, my aim is to be mentally, emotionally, technically well-equipped - Alekya
For Priya, finances also played a crucial role in her growth as an independent designer, struggling with the lack of a stable income and reaching breaking point along the way that led her to almost give up. But with perseverance, she overcame the challenges and persevered. One noticeable impact on her industry has been the development of AI which has led to many people loosing their jobs across the world. However, Priya explains how "This machine, this intelligence can do anything I can do...but if I look at AI as a tool, it speeds up my process of work. It's like an intern for me." She tells us how "as a designer, I want to be irreplaceable and the beauty of design and art is to have the human error - that's my USP. I have error, take it!"
Personal Projects
For both Priya and Alekya, they have personal endeavours that are both holistic in nature and creative in practise. For Alekya, she tells us about her project 'Home Theatre' which is a collective for people to write, experiment and practise their art such and "be their full self of expression, on screen, behind the screen... to be that area of exploration for actors to feel safe in the community to go wrong, to be vulnerable, to be there for eachother and bounce ideas". This is something that goes hand in hand with her own journey of being liberated and having "that strength to believe fear is not all dark, it's also courage... to befriend it".
I have that strength to believe fear is not all dark, it's also courage
- Alekya
For Priya, her attention is drawn towards 'Love is Practise' which are small visual tools that help people get through a tough day creating space to navigate life through grief and loss. This is something close to Priya's heart having experienced her partner's death. She explains how "Grief is not talked about, at least in Indian communities I haven't seen people openly grieving. So I've created a small book of 30 pages about how to help a grieving friend". This includes navigating conversations of support and small ways to ease the challenge of not knowing how to discuss grief.
Grief is not talked about... so I've created a small book about how to help a grieving friend - Priya
Both Alekya and Priya are set to keep making waves in the industries they've chosen. The resilence, determination, and joy that they take into each new chapter of their life is a true reflection of their ambitious characters. Watching their creativity evolve sprinkled with laughter and love between them both is truly inspiring - a friendship of reliability and liberation all wrapped up in a big sassy bow.
Be sure to check them out on IG @priya.kolluru and Aleya @bohoo_lady
Interview by Bethany Burgoyne @bxsassy2
Tracklist:
Yun Hi Chala Chal - Udit Narayan, Hariharan
Phir Se Ud Chala - Mohit Chauhan
Ee Galilo - Wilson Herald, Nikhita Srivalli
Rehna Tu - A.R. Rahman
Vienna - Billy Joel