LOVE LETTERS TO TURBULENCE

ARTIST STATEMENT 
Love Letters to Turbulence (LLtT) is a trauma-informed, interdisciplinary project combining visual, digital and participatory elements to explore identity, healing and personal narrative after trauma. The project comprises a main installation, collaborative zines, community workshops, a digital platform, an evolving archive and an optional textile element. LLtT is site-responsive, designed to travel across Canada to both institutional and community spaces, with accessibility and consent-centered participation built into its framework.

LLtT embodies the non-binary transience of being in the present moment(s) through inner and outer exploration, reflection and interactivity; inviting reimagined ideas of identity through reconsideration and communication of autobiographical narratives relating to trauma – individually and communally.

Offering a creative platform for viewers/participants to reflect on and/or share about trauma and the lasting e/affects at their own comfort level though multiple entry points, LLtT is a tool for communicating trauma related experiences with self, survivors and/or supporters. With this, LLtT aims to help normalize trauma related communication, removing some of the shame and ignorance often culturally and socially associated with survivors; co-creating more trauma-informed habitual ways of relating.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
To be considered as a whole (or in parts if necessary):

WELCOME CARE STATION
Offering choice and agency, informing of subject matter and options for viewing/participation, with support resources.

MANUSCRIPT
Clotheslines across walls display a selection from 455 8.5” X 8.5” image/text loose-leaf pages (ink, watercolour, acrylic, photo retouching fluid, graphite, watercolour paper). Three storylines link throughout resourcing lived experience and journal entries (1991-present) pulling from sexual assault (child, teen, adult), cultural and physical trauma; self-awareness (19+ years trauma recovery); and communication practices (self to self, survivor and supporter). The manuscript suggests a nonlinear state less about the exact who-what-where-when-why’s of particular traumatic experiences and more about the after e/affects of trauma in, on and through a being.

ZINES
Six artists – Leah Abramson, Sonja Ahlers, Joy Gyamfi, Marieke Helmke, M-A Murphy and Kira Pratt – are each contributing a personal narrative in response through a 20-page 8.5” X 8.5” zine, using self-selected replicated manuscript pages and similar manuscript materials.

WEBSITE
A digital container gathering anonymously contributed autobiographical narratives relating to trauma, healing and support has been co-created with designer Randy Walton to be launched at the inaugural sharing, a screen and keyboard set up provides access.

WORKSHOPS
In addition to the manuscript clotheslines, clotheslines that start empty (other than holding one replica of each of the six collaborator’s zines) will come to hold works created during workshops and/or during gallery hours through interactive pre-set up stations. For either, tables with replicated manuscript pages and materials will be offered (specifics TBD). Viewers/participants are invited to create 8.5” X 8.5” individual pages and/or zines. For workshops and/or pre-determined gallery hours, Fama will be present at a scanning station where participants can scan their work, anonymously contributing to a second evolving community manuscript, keep their work and/or donate to the previously empty clotheslines, which will then display viewers/participant responses.

TEXTILE ELEMENT
A finished/unfinished quilt acts as a survivor’s Safety Blanket; a tool to signify when a nervous-system overload response occurs during intimacy.