TILL DEATH DO US PART

           Women need fair representation everywhere.

           It is not a matter of competition but

           of equality.

                                        - Farooq Abdullah

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It is through this representation that my aim, within my artistic practice, is to bring the voices of those silenced or spoken over to the light. In 2021 my artwork became a continuation of the work I started in 2020 called Tumultuous. In 2020 I was inspired by my mom’s story of domestic abuse where she had suffered through many years of violence resulting in long-term emotional and physical trauma. Although a taboo topic, my aim was to investigate and question her experiences and the experiences of those around her. It was through working with these encounters that I was encouraged and inspired to focus on the idea of storytelling through artist books as it allowed for an exchange of experiences.

 

I had chosen to continue that focus on storytelling because I loved that idea of exchange, the exchange of a story, a part of life with that of a book. It is the idea of giving back instead of just taking. Instead of focusing solely on personal family experience, I aimed to focus on that of shared experience and integration of the stories of others. It was through a survey and word of mouth that I had gathered stories of women who were willing to share their experiences with me and with others. By keeping in mind, a need for a slow and cautious process, due to the sensitive nature, I aimed to represent these individuals without creating new or bringing up existing trauma.

 

It is through their unapologetic honesty that it begins to awaken people.

 

Each individual was represented in the form of an artist book that is particular to them, becoming a type “stand-in” for that person as a way of telling their story within an artistic realm. It was through a continuous conversation with these individuals that we become co-authors and cocreators of these books. By handmaking, painting, folding, and/or binding I become forever integrated into their story and this artwork.

 

I also created a type of ‘publication’ that has all of the stories I had gathered in the form of text and imagery. It began to take on much more of a literal form of story-telling allowing it to become more accessible in the hopes of a larger degree of understanding and relation. It is this ‘publication’ that contains all the stories given to me as a way of retaining inclusivity and not dismissing the lived experience.

 

              “It’s old, unhappy far off things, and battles long ago…”

- Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper