“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could. ”

— Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

STATEMENT:

Damaged constitutes an ongoing series that delves into Betrayal Trauma and its manifestation as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Betrayal trauma PTSD frequently unfolds within domestic spheres. This symbolic representation unearths the raw emotional undercurrents shared by those who have suffered betrayal at the hands of loved ones. Because I am also a survivor, I began this project by making Polaroid self-portraits, then harnessed a fusion of controlled chemical reactions utilizing everyday household items and cleaning agents on their emulsion. The alchemical interaction, manual manipulation, and judicious application of red light and heat collectively give rise to each image. Emotional healing is not linear; various triggers may change one's journey at any time, so the images do not have a calendrical sequence.

Much akin to how our internal psychological landscapes respond to external stimuli, the fragile Polaroid emulsion mirrors human skin and the human psyche, measuring the repercussions of human interaction. The resulting imagery is an allegorical visual embodiment of the deleterious effect of manipulation inflicted by individuals in whom we have reposed our utmost trust.

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