I was a dreamer, because I needed it
My name is Hanna.
I was baptized Hanna Guadalupe Winiarczyk-Illoldi.
Today I am called Hanna Kristall.
I changed my surname to Kristall as a symbol of transformation, similar to a snake shedding its skin as part of a natural process, symbolizing growth and a new beginning.
I am the daughter of a Mexican teacher / health care manager and a Polish musician / conductor.
I was born in Austria, but raised traveling Mexico, Italy, Poland and many other parts of the world, while on tour with my dad.
My brother Karol is older than me, but numbers never really mattered: we were like twins. And still are. We had a very happy childhood.
When I was 11, my parents divorced.
When my dad left something inside me went with him. He left a void I've been learning to understand ever since. I had always been curious, full of life and confident in who I was - but his absence changed me. On the outside I might have seemed fine, but inside I felt broken.
But life is always in balance and where there is darkness there is also light.
My dad did not come back, but what came to me is a deep love for writing and music.
I started writing songs when I was 11 years old.
This is the moment I became an artist.
WTF - We the fighters
I spent my teenage years reading, writing and trying to make sense of life.
For many reasons, I lived in a kind of isolation, and I did not feel seen by the people around me.
Partly because that's how teenagers feel. Partly because the absence of my dad cracked something open that not many in my surrounding had experienced - or if they had, they recovered quickly and went on to daily 'business'.
While they were concerned about their weekends and having fun,
I was quietly trying to find my place in this world.
But I did feel understood - by anyone with a strong and genuine spirit. By those, who had seen and felt life deeply.
I met them through books, music and movies. I loved reading biographies by artists, writers, designers, entrepreneurs,...
All those things gave me deep inspiration, and it was all I needed.
I was a dreamer and I created a world on my own - a place where I felt understood, inspired and free.
Are you who you are
The 'real' world remained challenging, but I found what I needed to go on.
The wounds were there, but they gave me the ability to connect to myself deeply.
And I am thankful.
My pain taught me to feel, to understand and to connect with others in a meaningful way.
Back then I created for myself alone. Only later did I realize what gift I had been given.
My past is what drives my desire to make art:
I know what it means to listen to the right song at the right time, to feel connected to someone through a shared thought and feeling.
Or to read that one line that explains your inner world so clearly that it makes you understand yourself better.
As a teenager, music spoke for me - it was my connection to the world.
Today, it's the place where I feel most alive.
And when I first went on stage, at 15, it didn't feel like foreign ground. I moved as if I had always been there and I knew:
this is where I belong.
And nothing changed ever since.
The toughest obstacles you'll encounter in life are the ones within yourself,
and you have to resolve them all alone, within your own mind.
And if there is success: that's how it feels.
