I first exhibited the Slice/Silence project in 2022, as part of The Big Anxiety Festival in Naarm/Melbourne. It began as a deeply personal project, out of a need to explore the experience of self-injury (which had come back into my life after many years) and the widespread silencing of this experience in communities, on social media, even in the ‘mental health services’ supposed to help us.
I made a huge pile of art cushions about self-injury, about silencing, about trauma and oppression. Then I exhibited them in a lounge-room-type environment, and invited people to come and hold the cushions, cut them, stitch them, tattoo them…whatever they want.
I didn’t think many people would come, and I suspected some folks might get angry with me for daring to speak about this. But So Many People came! I announced a time for a discussion group, and over 40 people poured in, crammed into this little space, and I realised that I am far from alone in wanting to be able to just speak about this.
The following year, 2023, I enrolled in a PhD program and Slice/Silence has been my primary focus since them. I’ve exhibited twice more on Gadigal Country (Sydney), and each time, other survivors tell me they feel heard and seen in a way that is rare in their lives. Each time I find myself sitting with folks as we cry and rage together. Each time the cushions evolve into a bigger, more powerful collective story that needs to be heard.
My PhD has become much more complex than a PhD is supposed to be. It is about self-injury and silencing—and the kinds of social and political experiences (typically also silenced) that lead us to cut and burn and smash our bodies. It is also about growing a mad peer support practice, independent of the psych system, fiercely anti-carceral (no force, no pathologising, ever), and where co-created art, mutual support and resistance are at the heart of what peer support is about.
Check out the Slice/Silence project website, there’s even a little film there. Later in 2025 I should be announcing the final, major installation and research, with an invitation for up to 12 people who use self-injury to join the project. There will also be exhibition open times for anyone to come and see the project as it evolves, and to contribute messages of solidarity.
