Artemisa, a creative space
Psychoanalysis and desire
‘Psychoanalysis has given me many pleasant moments that, in a way, help me face and balance the scales in the most difficult moments I have gone through.’ Nidia Henao says that her encounter with psychoanalysis has served as a support to face adversity and sustain herself in life.
She began her process about four years ago, when someone told her about the psychoanalyst Yoany Rendón, whom she decided to visit and with whom she continues today. ‘I have never abandoned my process; analysis is a great responsibility for me,’ says Nidia. Her encounter with psychoanalysis came about while she was leading an Alcoholics Anonymous group, where someone told her about their own analysis.
‘These years have been full of challenging situations, but here I am, eager to live.’ ‘A while ago, I decided to sell everything. I wanted to embark on a journey I never took.’ These words recall precisely the quote from Jacques Lacan in his Seminar VI on the baggage we make.
The situation was not easy at all, Nidia continues, ‘I had no money, just enough credit card limit to rent a small flat for a month and a little extra to buy food for myself and my daughter.’ ‘I got a job as a saleswoman, I visited many towns and ended up meeting a lot of people.’ That job allowed her to pay her expenses for the time being.
That job showed her another path. A path that, according to Nidia, she began to see as her own through analysis, although it would not be the definitive one, as Artemisa was later born. Now she not only knew who to sell to, but also where to buy. She decided to do her own thing and become independent. She travelled on her motorbike to the city of Medellín in the mornings, where she purchased goods that she then resold in the afternoons in villages a few dozen kilometres away. She ended her days at home a little late, but eager to start again.”
“Things were going better, and now I needed a small warehouse. The importers were now helping me with larger volumes, and I decided to expand. Once again, I faced a decision: pay an invoice to an importer or use the money to rent a new place that would serve as a warehouse. The importer gave me a hand, and so I was able to rent the place.” I can improve my family’s quality of life, and now I also live in a larger and more comfortable house, Nidia tells us.
Then came the cancer. ‘Everything at once. The illness, the responsibility I now had for what I had started, allowed me to provide my daughter with a better life. What I had always dreamed of.’ Nidia says this is what has kept her going: work, analysis, her love for life and her daughter, and, above all, her will to live. ‘Even the day after either of my two types of chemotherapy, biological and of her soul, I’m there working. I don’t understand where I got the strength from, but one thing is certain: analysis, which is, in a nutshell, my soul chemotherapy, and work have given me a helping hand.’
On 25 November 2025, when this interview was conducted, we heard the good news from Nidia that her biological treatment is about to conclude with positive results. She also tells us that, through analysis, she has understood that guilt has played an important role in her life and in her malaise. “In analysis, she has found a way to work towards well-being. The feeling of guilt has made her soul sick.” This is something that Freud himself warned about in his work on mental states and how this guilt becomes tyrannical for the subject (Freud, 2012).
Well, today, the activity that she had started under the name Nidia Henao has been transformed into ‘Artemisa, a creative space‘ ‘This is the path to making a different name for myself through art.’ ‘Every day I ask myself what my way out will be, where I will achieve it. I must continue working for it.’
‘At Artemisa, I use my hands to paint, and I also have a space that functions as a beauty salon. I have found in art something that keeps me wanting to live.’ ‘Artemisa is that for me, a brave woman who faces her desire and, above all, wants to live.’
‘I continue walking the path I started at Artemisa, thanks to psychoanalysis, where I go every week for treatment of my soul.’ That way out is turning into a relationship between Nidia and her desire (Laurent, 2002).
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Freud, S. (2012). El yo y el ello (1923). In Sigmund Freud Obras Completas XIX. (1923 -1925). Amorrortu Editores.
Lacan, J. (2019). Desire and its interpretation. The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VI. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Polity.
Laurent, É. (2002). Los objetos de la pasión. Tres Haches.
