Hello I’m gonna sit for my talk so thank you for coming so my name is Annie and I’m glad to be here for the past 10 years I’ve been working on a project that looks at gender-based violence and it aims to reduce the stigma around gender-based violence to critique representations of gender in American society and addressed a complicated cycle of abuse right now I’m just going to give you an overview of the project and then really hone in on one of the projects which is about my best friend so a lot of this work is combined portraiture this is a woman who I met like at the crisis shelter who had just gotten out of a big abusive relationship and was about to board a bus back to her home and so it exists in these transitional spaces which are the crisis shelters or when people live in their cars and this time of you know leaving their home and trying to like start anew and also in domestic spaces so this is a door at this woman Shirley’s house who was severely strangled by her ex on multiple occasions she has since passed and the nature of her death is unknown and this is Charlotte who was also passed and this is well she was living in her car after moving out of her trailer with her ex before moving into the crisis shelter so a lot of this work I aim to try and like really personalize and visualize statistics like how do we talk about that on average it takes a woman seven times to leave an abusive relationship before she permanently leaves so what are the little like subtle details and more like striking images that we can really look at and and try and understand these numbers that are real people’s experiences I’m just gonna go through click so a lot of this work takes place in the Great Plains and looks at Williston North Dakota and Sydney Montana are two of the areas that I work with so this is a crisis shelter in Sidney Montana and this is a sheet of paper that the shelter gives women when they arrive and just ask them to sit down with it and circle all the instances that apply to them because I think a lot of times people try and you know push aside like how bad and how severe the situation is but when you’re forced to really let go through and highlight or circle what’s happening you know that that has made more apparent okay so the project I’m going to go in is like really hone in on is about my best friend and a lot of this work is rooted in my trauma and the trauma of those I love so this project which is entitled we grew up with gum in our hair is about my friend Hannah who I’ve been photographing with since we were 14 so these are images from high school right now you know there’s no real intention with this work I just have been photographing since I was 14 and have always used as a way to sort of understand the world and process things even if there’s like I wasn’t like I’m gonna set out to photograph a thing on domestic violence like it really just happened as a result of life [Music] also just note her shirt says jailbait so it’s like the little things looking back that you’re like how are we conditioning our self-worth so this is the last image I made of Hannah because when we were 20 we didn’t see or speak to each other for two years because she was in a violent domestic relationship and I just was pissed that she was choosing him over us and then she couldn’t see me without there being like violent repercussions and during that two years I was raped and assaulted while I was in college and rape is the most violent crime that happens on college campuses in America one in four women will be raped during their academic career and I went to school this is a picture of my first black guy and I went into my classroom and none of my professors asked me what was going on no one like gave a [ __ ] my classmates blamed me for drinking the police blamed me for drinking and I just really started to pull away from school which I was studying photography so at that point you know it’s like my career and then this is a picture of Hannah’s first black guy and you know and when I list it and I’m just gonna play a letter and then this is a letter she wrote me during that time you can just call me one of her Amy I don’t really know what to say besides I’m sorry I don’t know if you only think about me but you are always in my thoughts I dream about you almost every night right now in Arizona doing a program to help me understand why I let Mike abuse me for so long I’ve lost everything and everyone and it kills me to think I’ve lost you do you remember how it used to be I do and I can’t let go of that I also want to wish you a happy belated birthday I’m writing you because I’m too afraid to call so when we reconnected it was instantly after she left her relationship and she suffered from extreme complex post-traumatic stress and syndrome disorder and pulled out all of the hair on her body and this is a pros and cons list of the you know pros at staying alive during recovery and I’m going a little short on time but we can talk after if you want I just want to like sort of fast forward if you’re like her recovery was long and she’s good now but when she was in that relationship and when she had a black eye my mom went up to her and said because she works at a Starbucks up the street from my house and said you know if you ever need a safe place to stay like you can absolutely come to my house and no one has to know and I think it’s really important that we just think about the little things we can do for the people in our lives that are in violent or threatening circumstances or addictions and that we have these conversations like me too has been great and like a lot of conversations have happened because of it but I think like going up to the kids in your life oh well I was imagine there’s a photograph up there and saying things like if you’re ever raped you can come to me and using those words like saying the word raped and then also saying like one of the most common things I hear is that women are early afraid to fathers because of the harm that they will do to their abuser so like eliminating that fear and letting them know that you will just listen and not act on their behalf it’s really important so that’s the end of my speech I thank you [Music]