Joanne Posluszny-Hoffsten
Linköping, Sweden
Download articlePublished in: Current Issues in European Cultural Studies; June 15-17; Norrköping; Sweden 2011
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 62:43, p. 423-427
Published: 2011-11-22
ISBN: 978-91-7519-993-1
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
In my art exhibit ”The Silence of Abuse; The Burning Flame of Hope” it was my intent to express through my art the emotions of the abused and the downtrodden. In creating these artworks I have used photographs of people who are in situations of conflict and abuse throughout the world. One photo; for example; shows a Japanese woman holding her crippled son; another; Chinese workers pulling heavy burdens while being tied together and several others portray Swedish couples entrenched in drug and alchohol abuse. In two sculptures I have shown a black man gazing out in despair and a woman being embrassed by her friend; after leaving her home where she had discovered her dead husband’s body-in a picture from war torn France from World War II. The situations I show vary; the locations are diverse; yet the message is the same. When people find themselves in situations which are so difficult that they are unable to react; they no longer dare to speak – they fall silent. It is the silence of abuse. As Ghandi proclaimed– ”there can be no change.”