STAR Dream Girl: Ninna Juan

In this modern age where technology affects interpersonal communication, only a few teenagers take the effort to show affection for their parents and friends. Twenty-year-old Christina Maris Juan, or Ninna to everyone, is one of them. "Hypocrisy is ugly. Lies ruin relationships and dreams. I just wish people could be more honest so there’d be less pain," philosophizes Ninna, an Interior Design senior at the University of Sto. Tomas.

Her passion for the arts goes beyond her canvass and color palettes. "I love functional art. I want everything I touch (with regards to art) to have meaning." She adds, "A professor from UP once told us that interior designers are maintenance mechanisms of human memory. We could make or break a room. I’d love to think about all the laughter, crying, eating and conversations that will go on inside the places I’m designing. It’s a great feeling to know you’ve given life to a space that will be filled up with people’s memories."

When she’s not dabbling in her art projects, Ninna can be found in her gigs with a band she recently formed with friends. Showcasing her singing prowess, she can belt out tunes that range from classical to alternative rock. Yet, she can bum around the house and just be content with song writing, another passion. "It’s rare for me to be comfortable about expressing my deepest emotions to people, so I just express them through the songs or poems I compose." Poetry is something she might have gotten from reading children’s novels of Roald Dhal, David Almond and Neil Gaiman.

"I’m weird," she continues on to describe herself. "Someday, I want to put up a non-stock, non-profit design firm that will specialize in renovating churches." This, she attributes to her Payatas visit two summers ago when she realized that while people have the freedom to worship, they might as well beautify their place of worship.

Asked on things she collects, she was quick to reply that she collects happy thoughts. "I give and ask for them," furthers Ninna, the third daughter of Capt. Manuel Juan, a pilot, and the former Susan Jaro, a ministry worker and organization consultant.

Like any true-blue artist, Ninna takes on modeling like any other visual art. She feels she is the canvass being painted on every now and then. "It’s fun to be an artwork," the Wazzup Wazzup Studio 23 Beach Bum finalist gushes. Ninna singles out Jo Ann Bitagcol as her idol in the modeling business because of her "humble yet regal aura that only a few models I’ve met possess."

To her, a STAR Dream Girl is "someone who is God-fearing, dreams big as well as possesses a big heart for people." – JERNI MAY H. CAMPOSANO