Places of the 1 in 4 / Perception Shift

TRIGGER WARNING: This project is about sexual assault. The images and context may be triggering to some survivors. I wish you peace.

The title refers to the statistic claiming one in four girls will be sexually assaulted before they are eighteen, but sexual violence occurs without regard for gender, orientation, race or age. There were 660 reports of sexual assault made to the Austin Police in one year. As disparate as the victims, so are the locations where assault occurs. This series explores the perception of place: unexceptional and forgettable, or painful and unforgettable.

We pass these all too banal locations without recognizing or respecting the pain of others. As a nearly 40-year survivor of sexual assault, I stand fully present in these spaces, with compassion and empathy, in the knowledge that the trajectory of someone’s life was forever altered in the places I photograph. Some cannot identify a location. For them, only the sky is a certainty. Begun in 2014, this project will conclude when a formal portrait of each of the 660 locations is made. 

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