Create your future

This body of work has been completed in collaboration with a group of women who have all experienced domestic violence and abuse. The women have been participating in the “Create Your Future Project”. This has been fronted by The Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury as to provide artistic activities for families who have, and still are, experiencing domestic violence and abuse. The group gives mothers and children a time each week to relax and enjoy creative activities in a supported environment. Create Your Future has run throughout Gloucestershire in family and arts centres.

This group chose to produce a body of work to try to explain to others what they have been through.

Physical violence is easy to see - a cut, a bruise a fracture. Emotional abuse is unseen, unheard, hidden.  It is words, silence or actions used to threaten belittle or humiliate another person.

Its purpose fear; its goal control

It is difficult to explain, to make sense of, and to understand.

This art work has been completed by people who have experienced emotional abuse over a long time and is an expression of how things aren't always what they seem. 

The words are the provided by the women. These have then been embroidered, painted and printed onto items by members of the group and the textile artist Joanna Teague.

 I am still in the process of taking photos of the pieces and plan to tell you more. This is the text from the exhibition here