Update
Due to recent occurrences at UrbanGlass that impact but are unrelated to this show,
it will no longer take place in May of 2024.
I am currently seeking a new venue that aligns with the spirit of Within/Without, namely one of voice, engagement with difficult topics, and the generative catharsis of truth.
To those generous and bold individuals who submitted firsthand accounts of intimate partner abuse, thank you. I wish I could express this to each of you directly, but anonymity is a double-edged sword. Know that I am humbled by your trust, and I promise to find an institution worthy of your inestimable strength and beauty.
I will continue collecting our voices until the last utterance of conditional empathy fades away.
Throughout my experience in an abusive relationship, I felt extreme isolation and shame. I believed no one I knew could understand what I was going through, and if I shared my story I would carry the stigma of an abused woman for the rest of my life. Now, years removed from my experience and making publicly shared work that draws from that time, I understand that I was never alone.
1 in 2 transgender persons, 1 in 3 women, and 1 in 7 men will experience abuse from an intimate partner in their lifetime; we are literally surrounded every day by people who contain hidden stories of domestic violence. And yet, we almost never hear first-hand accounts from those we know and love. There is too much shame and secrecy, and I believe that needs to change. I have seen what can happen if we speak our truths aloud. I have seen the empowerment that comes from sharing one's own experience and the freedom that comes from the reciprocal acknowledgment of something so deeply personal.
I invite you to become a part of one such moment by sharing your story in Within/Without.
In the responsive installation Within/Without, on view at UrbanGlass from May-July of 2024, I wish to make visible the voices of those who have experienced intimate partner abuse and hold space for moments of release, support, and connection.
Within/Without will fill the window gallery with vessels and prints that contain personal narratives of domestic abuse, creating an immersive and interactive space vibrating with visible presence and the desire to speak. Sheets of printed writings will be dissolved in water-filled glass vessels, where the plasticized text releases from the paper to float freely in abstracted but recognizable word forms and disconnected letters. Throughout the duration of the installation individuals are invited to engage with the glass vessels and their contents using kinetic plates and their own body movements, spilling the water and dissolved writings into process drawings on steel. This conscious engagement frees the stories to become one-of-a-kind communal rust prints, living records of transformative connection that accumulate upon the gallery walls.
If you would like to anonymously share your story for inclusion in Within/Without, please submit it via the form below. I am immensely grateful to you for entrusting me with your experience.
Add Your Voice
Share your personal experience with domestic abuse for anonymous inclusion in Within/Without, the upcoming installation at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn. If you would prefer that your word order be shuffled for further privacy, you can use this text converter before pasting your text into the field below.
About the Exhibition
Within/Without
On View at UrbanGlass 5/22/2024 - 7/12/2024
Glass has the power to elicit tension, give substance to invisibility, and call for care. Utilizing these material truths in poetic interplay with steel, water, and personal disclosures gathered from across the country, Within/Without asks the viewer to engage with the precarious. Kinetic glass vessels filled with the stories of individuals who have experienced domestic abuse cover the walls of the installation, seeming to vibrate with the contained potential of their message. When chosen by visitors and placed upon nearby steel pressure plates that tilt in response to gesture and presence, the glass objects spill swirling water and text onto their shifting canvas, creating compositions laden with transformation and connection. These steel process drawings, collected throughout the exhibition and added to the walls of the gallery, join the glass vessels to create an immersive environment. One that celebrates vulnerability, and rewards slowness, effort, and the generosity of releasing truth.
Alongside Within/Without, artist Brynn Hurlstone will host the panel discussion Are You Sure You Want to Do That? Art Making and the Dreaded T-Word, a conversation with artists who utilize personal trauma as a departure point for their creative practice. Join us as the artists and audience engage openly with the triumphs, rewards, sacrifices, strategies, and reactions that result from this vulnerable and often stigmatized form of making.