Art has the ability to create reaction. It can open up a space for connection and compassion. It can heal trauma by bridging the void between what is seen as acceptable and the ‘othered,’ the vast sea of disconnect trauma can bring.
Katherine Gilmartin
Visual language was my first mode of honest communication. Age ten, I drew explicitly how I felt, dark, left it on the stairs for my mother to see. No response. Had a baby at 21, wrung out the art school education for every drop of time I could to be around those who could see and tell me what I was feeling. Seven years, one inappropriate marriage, a divorce and a colossal crisis, and a year of PTSD therapy later, I still visually communicate first but I have the words for the emotions. Since doing the Finding a Voice 2017 exhibition I have taken keynote roles at Mental Health Conferences and used my lived experience and paintings to teach part of the Domestic Abuse unit for the 3rd Year Clinical Psychology Students, UEA. Finding a Voice 2018 is scheduled for October 2018 at Anteros Arts Foundation in Norwich.
WHO SUPPORTS US
The team of MAI supporters and contributors is always expanding. We’re honoured to have a specialist collective of editors, whose enthusiasm & talent gave birth to MAI.
However, to turn our MAI dream into reality, we also relied on assistance from high-quality experts in web design, development and photography. Here we’d like to acknowledge their hard work and commitment to the feminist cause. Our feminist ‘thank you’ goes to:
Dots+Circles – a digital agency determined to make a difference, who’ve designed and built our MAI website. Their continuous support became a digital catalyst to our idealistic project.
Guy Martin – an award-winning and widely published British photographer who’s kindly agreed to share his images with our readers
Chandler Jernigan – a talented young American photographer whose portraits hugely enriched the visuals of MAI website
Matt Gillespie – a gifted professional British photographer who with no hesitation gave us permission to use some of his work
Julia Carbonell – an emerging Spanish photographer whose sharp outlook at contemporary women grasped our feminist attention
Ana Pedreira – a self-taught Portuguese photographer whose imagery from women protests beams with feminist aura
And other photographers whose images have been reproduced here: Cezanne Ali, Les Anderson, Mike Wilson, Annie Spratt, Cristian Newman, Peter Hershey