What are you doing for Domestic Violence Awareness Month?

Speaking Without Tongues, the current Hidden Voices project, explores violence and survival in the actual lives of women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. The ensemble of African-American, Arab, Euro-American, Latina, and South Asian women have worked with the non-profit Hidden Voices for more than a year, exploring their own experiences, learning how to tell their own stories, and giving voice to other women who share their struggle but cannot speak for themselves, either because they are still in danger or because their family or social positions prohibit this kind of exposure.

Violence against women and girls is a major human rights issue and a global phenomenon of epidemic proportions; it is hidden but it is pervasive. Violence affects our sisters, our mothers, our co-workers, and our children.

Using personal stories from survivors across NC, along with original music by Shirlette Ammons, Catherine Edgerton, and Shannon O’Neill, and photography by Jessie Gladin-Kramer and others, Speaking Without Tongues uncovers and expresses the almost unspeakable truths of these contemporary lives. The survival stories are horrifying but undeniably inspiring. Looking steadfastly at both realities allows us to enter a realm in which awareness grows and healing thrives.

In addition to the performance, the project includes self-portraits in the form of photographs and constructed boxes created by the survivors. The photographs express how personal scars – physical, emotional, intellectual – take shape in the geography of their bodies and their daily lives. The boxes combine personal and found objects; they boxes hide, frame, and reveal the survivors’ understanding that what is not spoken is still heard. The exhibit opening at The ArtsCenter is October 10, 2008.