Expressing Trauma Through Art
The Spiral of Containment: Rape's Aftermath, is an art collection exploring the impact of sexual violence through photography, holographic projection, video, and sound. Each image was created as a collaboration between each rape survivor and the artist, Elisa Iannacone.
The work was exhibited at the OXO Tower Bargehouse Gallery in London, the Cape Town Art Fair, and the Constitution Hill Human Rights Precinct in South Africa, where Mandela and Gandhi were once imprisoned. It is now a part of the Constitution Hill permanent museum art collection in Johannesburg and Athens’ Art4More exhibition in October 2022.
The collection is presented as an NFT as the first curated collection by Light.art.
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"These images are our statement. May these photographs generate empathy and help build a global community that fights back and no longer stands for silence, violence, or injustice.
I dedicate this work to the sexual violence survivors of the world who are battling an inner spiral of containment – where the images, memories and feelings within them will never be fully understood by anyone but themselves. This is my artistic way of acknowledging what happened, and closing a chapter on it. As collaborators, each survivor and I came up with a concept for their stories. I am simply a visual interpreter of what they chose to share with me.
I respected each person’s decision to disclose as much or as little information as they felt comfortable with. In this project, no names will be used unless the survivors themselves stated them during our conversations. Instead, I refer to each participant by ‘colour', to respect their anonymity. Each photograph is made up of direct quotes from each of the survivors' own stories.”
About the artist
Elisa Innacone
Elisa has worked as a photographer and cinematographer on six continents producing work for outlets such as Newsweek, National Geographic, and BBC. Covering challenging environments, from the Rabaa massacre in Cairo and domestic violence within Iraqi refugee camps to the impact of cyclone Idai in Mozambique, has fuelled her work with social consciousness.
In 2020, Elisa founded Reframe House media agency to shift views on social justice through art and multi-media. She has since worked with prisoners of war in Cameroon to raise awareness of the conflict, through the Humans of the Forgotten War campaign; and with children experiencing chronic illness at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital. The Open University is currently studying her work methodology to asses the degree to which art can become a form of justice.
Power
I was running away to put an end to everything. There was no shouting or begging, I was totally in control.
Uncaged
The cage is an internal place.
Eye of the Storm
The morning after image is the one that stuck with me, like a hurricane, being in the centre, in the eye of the storm.
The Puppet
What once was a person is now barely an object and a thing.
Circus
Everything around me felt like a circus.
Broken Wings
It was necessary to place myself in that vulnerable space. I wanted to transmit that feeling of being bare and having nothing.
The Climb
Though everything was out of control, I could still go somewhere inside my mind, where the pain didn’t exist.
Staying Afloat
I kept reading every tombstone that we walked past. There were people that died in 2015 and I thought, I’m going to be one of the people that dies this year. There was no way I was going to escape. I tried to run, but he caught me.
The Kingdom
Standing at the abyss was very intimidating, I had a lot of fear in me; but once I got the dress on, as broken as it was, I got comfortable, regained confidence, and felt like it was my kingdom. I was owning it. Everything that was broken or taken from me, I was commanding back into my life.
Abandoned
What happened while I was living in that house had an impact for life.
Fiesta
It was always a well-known secret, but nobody would dare to say it. Abusers and rapists are within families. They are fathers, and in my case, grandfathers.
Normal
I was introduced to sex at the age of five by a woman. Everybody says it must have been terrible and I think, actually, it was just normal. For me, that’s what happened every day and I carried on. I thought it was happening to everybody.
Mannequin
I was objectified over and over again, and very much felt like a mannequin. You could open the drawers and see each of those different places that I was abused in as a child, from 5 to 11.
The Present
I was five and he was 16. He said, ‘If you come up to my room, I’ll give you a present.
Flight and Fight
My first response was flight – to escape the horror I’d experienced. But soon after I realised I had survived and found myself turning back, determined to fight for change. Ballet became a creative outlet; it gave me a sense of grounding.
This collection was featured in Newsweek, Mashable, HuffingtonPost , Maverick and more.
Visit the website.
The Spiral of Containment: Rape's Aftermath is a travelling art exhibition that highlights the impact of rape through photography, an immersive soundscape and a hologram. You can explore the exhibition at the OXO Tower Bargehouse in London on the virtual tour, created by the wonderful Ben Cottman, from Aerial Film & Photo.
Images available to buy
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