A rape narrative told by a woman is one of the least believed stories in the world. Telling a rape story is a complex challenge, fraught with many hindrances that are a direct result of experiencing trauma. Systemic issues socially, culturally, and politically derived that inhibit women and men from reporting their rape stories. Consequently, an estimated 54% of rapes are not reported. The experience of being raped and not being believed is isolating.
To keep rape a secret is just as isolating, and to know the physical site of a rape, a site others pass every day unknowingly, is a burden.
I have made maps that are abstractions of space (as are all maps). Fragmentary, and veiled, these maps are abstractions of experience as well: not only the experience of the pain and confusion that results from not being believed or from keeping a secret, but also the experience of failing to make a whole out of fractured memories, failing to make sense. I try to map out pain and violence without knowing when and where these traumatic events have occurred. The layers of maps, the fragmentation, and the use of salt and stones are all my ways of addressing the rapes indirectly. My approach is filled with grief and uncertainty. I ask myself, in what space, literally and figuratively, do rapes occur? Failing to answer the question, I put my struggle, my attempt to find answers, on view. This is the closest I can come to the site of the unreported rape.