Content Note: The following images explicitly concern themes of sexual violence, dealing with the perpetuation of systems of abuse and the re-traumatisation of survivors
Lynsay Hodges | Stigmata (series) | 2017
Both unsettlingly personal and stridently political, Stigmata presents the dichotomy within which rape survivors are positioned: simultaneously objectified by a disciplinary gaze, their history interrogated in perpetuum for cracks. At first glance provocative, the discomfort for the survivor of living in a rape-filled world is displaced onto the captured audience. Tension arises when the posing is no longer decipherable as enticing or protective amidst the context of the words occupying the frame. Taken directly from responses given to the survivor upon disclosing her truth, the strenuous emotional labour of survivorhood is hinted at in the methods of reproducing these remarks onto the body. Facing further disruption by the formal presentation of the work, Stigmata aims to expose the everyday discursive construction of the raped body, and the alienation fostered by the enforced habitation of this embodiment.
