As an existential soul, there’s always been a question I’ve returned to: 
Who am I?

Seriously… what does that even mean?

That’s where it started for me. With words. With stories. With definition.
Meaning.
I’ve always been drawn to the idea that language doesn’t just describe the world, it shapes it.
That what we choose to name, we begin to understand.
From this, we begin to form.

I was drawn to stories early. First on pages, with books I couldn’t put down, now through stories that live on screens.
Different form, same instinct.

To understand and to be felt.
That is my first reason to create.

A particular book stayed with me, The Untethered Soul. 
Often, we tend to describe who we are through labels. Most commonly, that is a name.
And yet, a name is just a collection of symbols, letters given meaning over time.

My own name holds two opposing forces:
~ Shivani ~ derived from Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and transformation.
~ Uusi Einola ~ Finnish in origin, translating to ‘new man’, something I see as a beginning again.

Destruction and creation.
Not as opposites, but as a cycle. To break, rebuild, and redefine.
Again and again.

From all of this, what I know is simple.
Creation is essential to who I am.

“Who is Shi?” therefore is a process. A return.
Something that is constantly becoming.

Before I understood what it meant,
I was being seen.

My childhood wasn’t conventional.
It unfolded in studios and on stages, in front of cameras and audiences, in environments where presence mattered before I had the language to describe it.

From the age of nine to eighteen, I worked in Kenyan national television as a TV show host.
As a professional dancer of over 13 years, I learned discipline.

Through visibility, I learned how to capture attention.
Through performance, I learned how to hold it.

Over time, that perspective shifted.
From in front of the camera, to behind it, and eventually into the space around it.

And that’s where something deeper revealed itself.

Stories don’t exist in isolation. They are shaped by how they are framed and how they move.
That understanding changed everything for me.

Creativity, for me, is not an outcome.
It’s a way of seeing.

I don’t just work within this understanding.
I build from it.