Beneath by J. Genevieve

Editors Only Story

Beneath

Copyright J. Genevieve 2024

Date of Work Nov 2022 - Nov 2022

Updated Apr 2023

Topics Abstract, Abuse, Art, Black and White, Documentary, Domestic Violence, Emotion, Feature, Feminism, Gender, Intimate Partner Violence, Journalism, Nude, Personal, Personal Projects, Perspectives, Photography, Photojournalism, Portrait, Portraiture, Womens Rights

Summary

This personal project by artist J.Genevieve asks: how can art and intuitive photography bring both relief to survivors and a reckoning for those who dismiss and disregard the reality of the unseen side of intimate partner abuse/violence? CW: intimate partner violence, nudity, some suggestive content

In her book, "Holy", Donna Ferrato shows an image of a survivor where the film had become damaged to leave one side of the subject's face grotesque and distorted. The "accident" revealed a truth beneath the surface. While collectively, we've begun to grapple with the surface of the physical realities of intimate partner violence, there is still a side of this violence that goes unseen and often is misunderstood and overlooked. IPV exists on a spectrum but always has a cycle. Cycles repeat until we face the full picture of them. What if, by using art and intuitive photography, we could begin to *see* and face the unseen side of this cycle of violence that extends beyond the physical and into the mental, emotional and even spiritual level? How would that awareness help better support survivors and work to end the repetition of the cycle altogether? How would our care for survivors change if we could see in this way? Could these visuals be used as a starting point to help reimagine systems and structures so that justice is actually rightfully delivered to survivors? This personal project uses the power of the visual conversation as well as lived experience combined with intuitively driven personal art and photography to explore these possibilities. For an in depth look at the process, please continue reading below.

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Never have I put myself out there as a both a human and artist with this degree of visceral raw truth. It’s intensely vulnerable to say the least. But if there’s anything I’ve learned over the process of both my healing and art/photographic work (which often are one in the same) it’s that bringing what is unseen to the surface is a necessary act of defiance and disruption to transmute the long reigning narrative of power and control from the justification of "dominance over" to the necessitation of "empowerment within". We need more, not less of this in the world, particularly for survivors of IPV.

And I happen to be good at it.

Years ago, as I wrestled through the process of leaving a cycle of IPV, I set the intention to somehow document the abuse that had existed beneath my skin as a slow, relentless, fifteen year drip of violence. I had no idea how and doubted regularly that I even should or was “qualified” to. My abuse didn’t extend to the physical level, a nuance that was used often to hold that cycle in place. After all, it’s easy to dismiss and demonize that which can’t be seen. It was a literal mind fuck - confusing, distorting, nonsensical and all but invisible. There was deep healing, education, experience and reclamation that needed to occur before I could possess the perspective needed to stand firm both in the reality of my own experience and the ability to see what isn’t physically visible.

That intention laid dormant until November 2022 during the eclipse window. There was about a 72 hour period where I could not stop documenting myself. Rarely do I surrender the gaze of any camera, even my own, but the pull to do so in that time frame was incessant. I photographed within the very real everyday moments of my own humanity. There was no agenda for the images except to trust that intuitive nudge on when and what to set my sights on. I couldn’t see the images as having any connection to one another in the moment, but I remained in a space of trust that a story was working its way into the here and now. It wasn’t until I began to cull, edit and composite the images together that I saw that the story was my own. I audibly gasped when, for the first time, reflected back to me on the screen, I could see the network of scars which I had long felt beneath it all but had never seen.

Soon there were fifteen composite images each mirroring and reclaiming a different period of time within my fifteen year cycle of IPV and each containing nuances, textures and details specific to my experience. I couldn’t have planned it all if I tried. Only when I stepped into a space of embodiment of reclaimed identity, trust and intuition - no shot lists, no pre-meditated story, only a fierce presence with what is in the moment - could this work emerge. The relief that flowed through my body when viewing my lived experience as a tangible, present reality for the first time was inexplicable. I’m not entirely sure where this work is going or why it presented itself when it did, but I do know that there’s something to all of it that is meant to join in helping to continue moving us all towards a space of liberation. To whomever is viewing, thank you for your time and consideration and for holding these images carefully. Should you want to dive deeper into the process, fifty five individual images total were used in the project to make the fifteen viewed here and are available upon request.