I am increasingly interested in the overlap of perpetrator and victim...how a traumatic event (initiated by one onto another) links the lives of both parties forever.
Nelson Mandela and Verwoerd, the grand architect of Apartheid, Joel and Lisa Steinberg, Nixalise and Nixmary Brown, Jennifer Levin and Robert Chambers, John Lennon and his murderer, etc.
What happens when the gazes of both parties overlap at the viewer? Who is seen? Who is being judged? What possibility is there of a new understanding of the event? I ask this because of my own fading memories of being attacked and the indelible marks that remain with my psyche. Working in a communicative way helps erase the shameful associations, but the actual faces of my assailants has faded over time.
What do those 12-year old boys look like now? Do they even remember the event?
What about my 18-year old? Does he remember what he did to me?
The preservation of an image is interesting as it relates to memory. Reading other blogs (that I don't know how to link to yet) inspired me to ask this question. What is it that remains of the image? Is it really the resonance of the molecules of the artist? How can that translate to working with trauma? Are the molecules of the perpetrator forever linked with those of the victim?
Both sides of the equation are interesting to me now...now that I've started to take responsibility for my own past and the choices I've made because of it. More images to come from these ideas soon...
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