Whilst I was doing more research on self-harm today and I came across a photographer, Richard Johnson, he took a series of photographs to show the emotional damage verbal abuse can do. he showed this by editing words onto peoples bodies and faces similar to scars- in other words as if the words had made a permanent scar on the person. he named his work 'weapons of choice'.
as I saw his work I really loved the simplicity and the impact it had on me, I was stunned by how simple the work was but yet so powerful and truthful. another work I found (Richard was inspired by this also) was Words can be Weapons, this is an artwork by O&M based on verbal abuse, taking young offenders and why they committed the crimes, then using the words they were called as kids (moron, good for nothing etc.) to create Chinese words that reassemble to make the weapons they used to commit the crimes.
from here I diverted my plans and I now want to focus on verbal abuse because there is no evidence of it when people say it (even when it is unknowingly) however the emotional damage it does is hurtful. another reason being is that it is very difficult to find true stories of self harm as not much people want to share it. verbal abuse is something that happens on a daily basis even from the closest of people to us, but they are not aware of it and sometimes we aint ourselves but in our subconious mind we start to believe some of these words that are said to us regularly.
although I have changed my project slightly I will still be looking into self harm as it is relevant to verbal abuse because it can lead to that extent.
I will be taking my influence from Richard Johnson's work and Words can be Weapons.
(images- Richard Johnson 'weapon of choice' , O&M 'words can be weapons')
No comments:
Post a Comment