Project
Becomings
engage · learn · reimagine · grow
Reimagining recovery narratives following adversity
Post Nubilia Phoebus
(Loosely translated) after the cloud comes sunshine
At 17 years of age, duodenal ulcers were diagnosed, and at 21 years, surgery was performed to address the presenting problem.
At 28 years old, emergency surgery was carried out to remove poisoned areas of my stomach. By then, I had become addicted to tranquillisers, washed down by alcohol.
Sometime later, after stopping the tablets and the drink, I began to address the trauma of my young life, and it was during a session of therapy
whilst describing the sexual and physical abuse I had experienced along with domestic violence and abject poverty, I had an overwhelming urge to vomit.
Whilst I retched, the therapist encouraged me to stay with it, so I did. I stayed with the thoughts and the feelings, and I connected with the awfulness that had been my young life, the terror, anxiety, physical pain, mental torment, and an overriding sense of helplessness.
This exhibit represents the myriad of colours of the vomit as it and the poison that surgery could never have removed poured from me, releasing the archaic awfulness of my young life.