Paula Meninato, Visual Artist

In the oral history archive, Anissa Fernandez discusses how art helped her cope with leaving her abuser. In stories of abuse, the survivor often keeps a sense of anonymity to protect themselves. However, when we can't see the survivor, we can't humanize them. By painting the eye, I'm giving the viewer a place to reflect and emphasize. 

I picked that particular quote because I wanted to focus on how incredibly strong Anissa and her daughter are. I also wanted to illustrate the importance of art in overcoming hardships. 

The gaze represents the idea of seeing the past, observing the present, and looking towards the future. 

The source image is a photograph I took of my own eye. I decided to add my glasses since I wanted to capture the reflection. I made the paintings double because I see double. I create double images in my art because, as an artist, I'm interpreting the image and therefore showing my audience how I see the world. 

For the audio, I re-recorded a paragraph from Anissa's story and changed the decibels on Premiere so it is impossible to tell who the speaker is. I wanted to give the voice a sense of anonymity since, for a lot of these stories, the voices of the survivors are stifled. Through art, I hope to reclaim the spaces and voices that are silenced.