Journal // Meet Our Community
BLACK MOUNTAIN PENINSULA, canberra
As a child, Denis was intrigued with the way things worked. So much so, he once climbed a 2.5m wall in front of his mother and then proceeded to lean forward until he fell to the ground. Fascinated with questions like “why do things fall?”, this you could say was the beginning of a life discovering beauty in the not so common places.
Born in Bosnia during the wartime, Denis escaped to Slovakia with his family at just 6 years of age. As refugees life was not the way most of us would know it. Being misunderstood, melancholic and a deep thinker, Denis learnt lessons early that some may hope to learn across a lifetime. This inner sanctum became the birth place for a life oriented towards discovering the beauty in the mundane and this has translated to a life rich in experiences.
He was a very calm child the moment he got books in his life – a theatre kid. Reading, theatre, music. He wasn’t a sports kid whasoever, though as a teen he was tall and in turn popular in sports favouring height. These included volleyball, basketball, tennis, horse jumping – he loved every sport he played, up until they became too aggressive.
Curiosity led Denis to Australia for 6 years where he immersed himself in the world of learning and development. On his way back from his studies, he went to help his parents out in their restaurant business, where he met his future husband, Roberto.
During this 4 year stint in Slovakia, Denis got serious about his photography and began compiling small reports. He then moved to Rome and immersed himself in travel, refugee education work, and lots time on the camera. From here he moved to South Korea, where he worked at the Wall Street Journal for four years, then headed back to Australia in 2021. Denis and Roberto were one of just 350 people allowed in during lockdown.
Perhaps most impressive is the fact Denis speaks 9 languages and understands many more. That talent crossed over to the dancefloor where his childhood love was confirmed with the line, “I used to dance my little gay ass off to Britney as a teenager’. This was his first realisation that movement was fun and didn’t have to be a chore.
When Denis arrived at Red Shed, he hadn’t trained in 15 years. He arrived with a nature that was extremely infectious and led him to harbouring mani nicknames. Once such one was “Vroom’, which coincides with the little red Fiat he arrived in.
In his own words, “A car needs to have emotion to it, it doesn’t have to perform it just has to make you happy when you see it. Especially colour.
Whenever I get out of it I give off a lot of clown energy, cos I’m 2m tall and the car is like 1m tall and T have to fold myself into it. ‘Speedy Pizza’ is his name, named after various pizza delivery drivers in Italy, as they drive erratically and neurotically.”
Denis unfortunately (for us) will be heading back to Rome this year, where Roberto has his next posting. With a man of his stature, he’s going to be wel missed and in many ways, irreplacable – but we hope one day he’ll be posted back and we’ll get to see Speedy Pizza grace us with his presence once again.
Thanks for being you Denis.
Q&A
What movie do you relate to most strongly ? Tom Fordz – A Single Man; a movie about seeing beauty in places where it wasn’t seen before.
What are you working on at the moment? Currently on myself, taking a break from work, focusing or exercising, nutrition (diagnosed with insulation/regulation disorder, where I lost 32kg) and supporting my husband.
What are you most proud of in your life right now? When I was 7 years old, arriving as refuges in Slovakia, it took me 7 months to figure out I was different and will always be different to other people, and trying to win friendships with people who don’t understand me was not a way to be happy.
Seeking external validation with people that can’t understand your reality does not lead to joy or happiness and that realisation I’m proud of as it guides me through life. We move all the time and I enter new cultures all the time. The realisation that the wider my life gets, the more experiences I have, the more cultures I encounter – all these intersecting experiences can take time for others to understand my frames of references.
What’s the best thing about Red Shed? It’s not a toxic environment. I’m not a gym person. The non-bravado – I love that people push you towards better goals but it’s not unhealthy pushing, we have so much fun working out and I feel safe here, I can be myself and learn so much new stuff.
If you were to marry yourself, which part would you enjoy the most? The over-intellectualizer, someone to talk to about needlessly over-complicated shit.
Since training at Red Shed, how many nicknames have you had? At least 5 every session *laughs*. Vroom/Nipples are two.
