Fragility
2022
description
I began working on the Fragility project five years ago. At that time, I saw in glass a metaphor for a person’s boundaries — fragile and invisible. Shards of glass injure us just as the aggressive intrusion of another person into the limits of our psyche or body does. What violates our boundaries? For me, the answer was unequivocal — violence.
When I began telling friends and acquaintances that I was working on a photo project about violence, I unexpectedly received a great number of responses. Almost everyone I spoke to said: “I’ve been through that too.” People shared their stories with me. I didn’t record them with a voice recorder — I asked people to write the texts themselves. It is incredibly important to me that each participant chose the tone of their story and defined their own voice. I believe that the process of remembering and writing about the experience can help make painful memories less acute.
Violence is an extremely widespread problem. I am troubled by the cruelty people show toward one another and by the helplessness of those who become its victims. Neither the law nor public opinion, unfortunately, provides survivors with adequate protection and support. Violence takes many forms, and for some it has, sadly, become an acceptable pattern of behavior. It was important for me to gather different kinds of stories in this project so that those who are experiencing something similar now might be able to talk about it with someone they trust, seek help, and finally put an end to it.