Tied 4 Last: A Restraining Order
body installation dance at the intersection of Sexual Violence and Police Brutality(premiering at Evidence: An Exhibit About Police Brutality at the FLYING ANVIL in Greensboro, NC as part of the travelling herstories installation)
Sense:
My sense was that I had to be quiet about the way someone who I knew was human but the police always thought was pure threat sexually assaulted me. My sense was that the women I knew who the police had brutalized couldn't be talked about in a community more willing to mourn the loss of men while forgetting the daily losses of women. My sense was that comparison was futile and that the racist police system and the normalization of sexual violence were all tied up together and that I was tangled in the web. My sense was that this was a privatized pain that needed to be made public.
Of:
So I thought on the ways that I had adorned myself in silent prayers to not fall apart starting the morrning after my assault and continuing for years, and decided to make ribbon, t-shirt, cloth, drapery, acrylic, twine amulets to the words that had kept me from bursting, each a statement that can no longer be reflexive that has to be...turned out.
Dispersal:
Because I was afraid to let myself fall apart, afraid of the landmine in my heart trying to protect this same person who attacked me from these same police who are allowed to kill all of us, I insist and intend on release...a dance of release that says that my body is bigger is more lithe is too slick and miraculous for the order that is restraining us.
With You:
So I invite you to make bracelets and anklets and garter belts and cumberbuns and corsets and chokers and waist bands and headbands in the language of the whispers you use to silence and police yourself and wear them and slow dance with your future, strip dance with your infinite worth and take it all off.
posted by lex @ 9:37 AM
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