An Invitation to Rediscover Ourselves – Migration, Creativity, and the Intelligence of the Heart
Updated: Jun 20, 2025
Entrepreneur, Female Empowerment & Mental Health Advocate Aleksandra Nikolajev Jones has for over two decades been transforming cultural connections, driving inclusivity & inspiring innovation through her productions, choreography, and fundraising, and cementing creative collaborations & partnerships around the world.
There are stories that are spoken, and others that are carried in the body, remembered in silence. For many of us who have migrated across borders, languages, expectations, our stories are not always told. Sometimes they are danced, drawn, whispered between breaths. Sometimes, they live between what we lost and what we’ve yet to imagine.
As a migrant woman and artist, I’ve come to believe that creativity is not simply a form of expression, it is a form of knowing. And that knowing begins not with the mind, but with the body. With the heart.
We have been taught to lead with reason. But what if there is a deeper, older intelligence within us—one that pulses through memory, intuition, and connection?
What if the heart knows before we do?
To migrate is to remember
In Wales, a movement is growing, quietly, powerfully, led by migrant women, girls, and mothers. Across Cardiff, Pontypridd, and Wrexham, we gather in community spaces to move, write, paint, cry, and laugh. Not to explain ourselves, but to feel ourselves back into belonging.
There is no single identity here. Only layers. Movement between worlds. Stories without punctuation. We do not begin with answers. We begin with questions:
What does your body carry today? What are you ready to release?
What has never been said—but always felt?
This is the work of Migration Voices. A project, yes, but more than that, a collective remembering. A place where the act of being seen is not a performance, but a return.
The language of the heart
Recent science confirms what ancestral wisdom always knew: the heart has its own intelligence. It speaks to the brain. It stores memory. It responds to presence.
When women close their eyes and begin to listen inward, something shifts. The body begins to speak. The breath slows. A truth surfaces, not one formed in language, but in resonance.
Heart intelligence is not about sentimentality. It is about coherence. A felt sense of truth. A knowing that bypasses fear.
And when we gather in this way, led by curiosity rather than outcome, we tap into something beyond ourselves. We begin to remember what it means to belong. Not to a country or system, but to our own lives.
A new kind of visibility
We do not seek to be represented. We seek to exist fully. As artists. As mothers. As young leaders. As women with stories that don’t need translation.
In the spaces we co-create, girls lead intergenerational storytelling. Mothers reclaim their joy. New arrivals find connection before they find perfect English. And in the process, a new archive is built, not just digital, but embodied. A ripple of change that moves through art, presence, and care.
This isn’t just about wellbeing. It’s about agency.
It’s about shifting who gets to shape culture and how. And it starts with the simplest of acts: listening.
What if this is the future we’re being asked to imagine?
Not faster. Not louder. But deeper.
A Wales where women of all origins are at the centre of creation. A world where cultural work begins with care, not credentials. A society that understands the intelligence of the heart as essential not optional.
This is not a manifesto. It’s an invitation. To rediscover yourself.
To create from where you truly are.
To lead from where you feel most alive.
Because belonging isn’t something we’re given. It’s something we remember, together.
Read more from Aleksandra Nikolajev Jones
Aleksandra Nikolajev Jones, Choreographer, Producer & Fundraiser
Aleksandra Nikolajev-Jones produces for theatre, television & film, nurturing new talent, mentoring, coaching & collaborating with international & local companies, institutions, and authorities. She is a member of the International Dance Council, CID, recognised by UNESCO. Working with professionals, communities, minorities & vulnerable groups, delivering projects that empower individual and collective well-being, she founded The Gravida Collective, which explores creativity, womanhood, & community engagement through new & innovative initiatives. With over two decades of experience, she continues to champion cultural exchange, inclusivity, and innovation in the arts, business, and beyond.
