Woman who lives under the lake
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
…one night
there’s a heartbeat at the door.
Outside, a woman in the fog,
with hair of twigs and a dress of weed,
dripping green lake water.
She says, ‘I am you,
and I have traveled a long distance.
Come with me, there is something I must show you…'
She turns to go, her cloak falls open,
Suddenly, golden light… everywhere, golden light…
In this research I explore staging sexual violence from a post victim perspective within the context of contemporary dance and artistic research. I discuss the topic through both artistic and ethical considerations.
I use my own embodied experience as an important source and place it in a larger socio-political and artistic context. This exegesis is in dialogue with the development of my solo work After, with the writing and research process deeply informing the creation of the piece, and vice versa. After is a full-length dance piece that invites the audience to witness an intimate ritual for the aftermath of sexual violence. The solo will premiere right after this research is submitted.
Throughout this research I use the term sexual violence to refer “a spectrum of sexually violent experiences” (Loney-Howes, 2020, p.3). By using this term, I acknowledge the variety of forms in which sexual violence occurs and the complex and sometimes ambiguous nature of victim experiences.
Sexual violence is a major societal problem, with the most extreme form being homicides. I come from Finland, often regarded as an ideal country for equality, yet sexual and domestic violence remain statistically everyday occurrences, cloaked in silence. The sexual violence pyramid shows how sexual violence starts with attitudes and beliefs. As an artist I situate the potential of my work in this realm. Victimhood, in particular, is surrounded by harmful beliefs that lead to victims not being believed, heard, respected and often being blamed (see Taylor, 2020). Art can portray alternative narratives and highlight existing ones to question and influence audiences’ beliefs. In this artistic research, I propose expanding existing narratives of victimhood through the experience of a post victim.
I approached both After and this research with an autoethnographic lens.
Autoethnography is an autobiographical genre of academic writing that draws on and analyzes or interprets the lived experience of the author and connects researcher insights to self-identity, cultural rules and resources, communication practices, traditions, premises, symbols, rules, shared meanings, emotions, values, and larger social, cultural, and political issues. (Poulos, 2021, p. 4)
Leena Valkeapää, an artist and researcher, beautifully expresses how an artist can think autoethnographically “I live in the world which I am examining” (p.71) and how it is about “inviting to receive research information through surrendering and opening up to the material that is being researched” (p.80), (translations me).
I write and create art from the point of view of a white, Finnish, non-disabled cisgender woman born in 1995, who has both experienced and witnessed sexual violence. In this research I address specifically sexual violence against women by men which statistically is the most common form. However, I do acknowledge that sexual violence affects people of all genders and is fundamentally an intersectional issue.
Philosopher Susan J. Brison writes about her own experience of the aftermath and trauma of sexual assault and attempted murder (2002). She discusses the danger of both over- and undergeneralization of first-person narratives. One person’s story is not everyone’s, but it still holds value beyond being a singular case. She frames her writing as speaking with other survivors, not for them. Similarly, in my writing and solo work, I cannot represent all perspectives, but I contribute to the same canon, speaking with other victims.
I work from a feminist perspective, and the majority of my sources come from this field. Given feminism’s historical engagement with issues such as rape and women’s reproductive rights, it is no coincidence that there is a wealth of feminist literature on these topics. Feminism has and continues to have a significant impact on shaping the trauma discourse, especially in validating sexual violence as a legitimate source of trauma and amplifying systematically oppressed voices (see Britt & Hammet, 2024).
This exegesis consists of five chapters that you can read in any order you prefer. In chapter Post victim I define the central post victim term and discuss its relationship with terms victim and survivor. Chapter Rape myths – virgins and whores discusses the parallels between modern day rape myths and mythical archetypes of women. In chapter Telling sexual violence differently I examine how sexual violence has been staged historically, I specifically focus on gaze, nakedness, and objectification. Chapter Ethical ways of working artistically with intimate trauma considers trauma-informed methods for the artistic process. In chapter Deeply personal in public I provide a detailed account of the creation and research process of After. I also conducted two interviews for this research: Bodies, boundaries and authenticity, dance and intimacy coordination – interview with intimacy coordinator and choreographer Saskia Oidtmann and Porn: the gaze, body and ethics – interview with a Finnish performance art collective Glitcher about Porn Horror Musical 2. Both of the interviews are readable in full in the Appendix.
