For those of us who grew up in homes where you can feel the tension in the air, the shift of tone and the slam of a door, the silence or shouting: what traces are left in your body, your memory and your actions? What does it do to your ability to create bonds? How can our love become corrupt? And how can we escape reproducing these patterns?
Small Acts of Violence began with my desire to understand how layers of violence exist within families, and all possible types of relationships within them, brother/sister, parents, parent- child, lovers, chosen family- both in heterosexual and same sex relationships. How the boundary between your own body and that of another is thin and how, when you love, this boundary can be erased. This topic resonates with my own experiences of the deconstruction of love that is entangled with physical violence, self harm, coercion and control within family and romantic relationships.
In the societies (BE/NL) and where I grew up (UK/USA), I believe that we often rely on oversimplified social narratives that make Women synonymous with victim and men with perpetrator. Whilst acknowledging there is ongoing incredibly important work to be done to prevent femicide, it can be harmful if we fail to acknowledge other forms of domestic violence such as maternal violence, sibling violence, child to parent violence, partner violence– female to male and queer/lesbian violence in relationships. A lack of nuance and a desire to either ignore or condemn a perpetrator and a victim because they do not fit a collective narrative can compound shame and isolate people in abusive cycles.
Small Acts of Violence became my first 360 virtual reality project because of the medium’s capability to build a beautifully seductive immersive space as a solo user experience, one that evokes the destabilising experience of domestic violence. It is a place where empathy and reflection are built, where you are both part of the actions of a family and an outsider, and have limited but powerful choices. I don’t desire to replicate archetypical scenes of domestic violence or the image of ‘perfect’ or ‘bad’ homes. Instead, I invite you into the confusion of a visually rich, dream-like space where all good and bad memories are wrapped together in a visual cocktail. There are references to domestic space, but this is not a home.
The work does not seek to judge but to explore the intertwining of violence and love that occurs in families, in relationships, and that develops into patterns. Whilst it focuses on violent narratives of women, non binary and non cis men, the aim is to build an empathic space for us all to consider our own behaviours, irrespective of gender, ethnicity and age, asking us to set our own boundaries. How can we learn through our bodies? What are we doing that we are not aware of? What behaviours have we normalised?