Download the thesis - South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault

expression of suspicion; the shadow articulates the imaginary enemy, evil and the
externalisation of the inner self. I also muse over the shadow for its wide-ranging
evocations that are neither wholly positive nor wholly negative, but rather a
representation of both and the spaces in between, such as the representation of clarity
and distortion, the present as well as the unseen and unknown, sanctuary as well as
fear. In the shades between light and dark, shadows help express something by
revealing its opposite.
Dark shadows make seeing difficult. In their isolation, and their acceptance of others’
negative views of them, victims of trauma can block the light, unwittingly creating the
dark shadows that impinge on their vision. They sit in their own shadow. Were the
victim or the light source moved, the victim’s perspective would also shift and, with
that, what is unsure and unclear might become easier to see. I think of art-making as
this movement.
The attributes of the shadow – sometimes transitory and indefinite, sometimes clear
and defined, or dark and gloomy – can be applied to the understanding and expression
of trauma, grief and art-making to help articulate what is difficult about writing and
speaking about art, and living with and explaining trauma and grief. The wide-ranging
connotations of the metaphor of the shadow help express my view that the creative
practices and artworks described are a discussion rather than an argument;
exploratory rather than definitive; about looking for possibilities, flexibility of thought
and interpretations rather than maintaining a fixed viewpoint. It is a metaphor that
describes the spaces between reality and abstraction, presence and absence and,
potently, communicates about light and perspective.
Those who experience sexual abuse can feel like outsiders. An enduring sense of
otherness, one legacy of their violation, is captured in the much-used phrase “me and
the outside world” introduced to me by research participants. In its bluntness it holds
the inheritance of abuse: victims’ immense feelings of difference and alienation, their
sense of aloneness and unworthiness, and the lack of care shown to them; the
“destruction of the soul", as sexual abuse victim Carole Stingel describes it (Robinson).
In many respects, artists are also outsiders, although largely out of choice. We spend
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