Consumed embodies a sexual assault victim plagued by intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and nightmares of the traumatic event. She is hyper-aroused and easily triggered by a myriad of stimuli that remind her of the traumatic event, from people to places, objects, words, loud noises, and sense memories. Consumed by clusters of traumatic scenes, she remains trapped within a frame by frame re-experience of her past until the trauma is addressed and processed.
I magnified the film strips to mirror the magnitude of the experience of a flashback. This magnification reveals how flashbacks can truly swallow a victim whole, transporting the victim back to the traumatic event in the past, as if it is happening again in the present moment.
She wears a hobble skirt with a film strip cage structured shell, restricting her movement to a hobble, conveying her confinement to and by her haunting past. She walks through her post-trauma life in avoidance of any reminders that might trigger a flashback.
Cloaked in fear, shame, and convicting scenes from her past, she walks with a train, a trail of haunting footage, with every step that she takes.
I collected these images by purchasing multiple disposable cameras, going to places in my past, and capturing images of where some of my traumatic events occurred and symbolic doors to my past I could not physically return to. The images of snakes and rats are google found images that represent reoccurring themes and symbols of my traumas that have shown up in my nightmares.
