Cabrillo extends its powerful ‘Speaking Out’ photo-essay exhibit in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month
At first glance, the black and white photos of nude women that line the upstairs study areas of Cabrillo College Library emanate liberation and confidence. But a few steps closer reveals the essays that accompany each picture—detailing the sexual abuse these women have experienced from friends, family members and strangers, in which they detail vulnerability, self-blame, addiction, and depression. It makes the strength on display in the photos all the more powerful.
The exhibit, called “Speaking Out,” is in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which has been recognized nationally in April since 2001. Some of the students who have written in these essays about the sexual violence they’ve endured are opening up about it for the first time. Photographer Jan Goff-LaFontaine is the author of “Women in Shadow and Light,” a collection of portraits and stories of survivors. She published her book about 10 years ago, and after speaking in front of students, she decided to restart her project at Cabrillo.
“There is a reason that they are nude portraits,” says Goff-LaFontaine. “Because women often after sexual assault will disconnect from their bodies, hate their bodies, gain a lot of weight, develop an eating disorder, [or] cut [themselves] in response to their assault.”
Goff-LaFontaine’s intention is to photograph the women nude so they can reclaim their bodies and feel beautiful. She says that most women decline having the nude photos taken at first, but after opening up in their interview, they often feel like it is the next step in their healing journey.
“There is a certain freedom that comes from [having their picture taken nude],” says Goff-LaFontaine. “From having someone who is looking at them only trying to see their beauty and their strength when they are photographing.”
Jessica and Jenna are two participants in the “Speaking Out” exhibit who joined Goff-LaFontaine to speak in front of Cabrillo classes about their experiences after the exhibit was put up.
Jessica is a survivor of abuse by multiple men. She was only 14 and a virgin when she was raped by two boys that went to school with her, and at 22 she was raped again by a friend. After her first assault, she continued to go to school at Harbor High School with the attackers who took her virginity.
Jessica writes in her essay, “Vulnerability has not come easy for me, but I am learning that when I do so, I receive the most beautiful reward: a connection with others.”
Jenna had a difficult time telling anyone, including her family, about her experience on a camping trip with family friends when a boy drugged her. She says she has very little memory of what happened, but she remembers the pain she had physically afterward. In Jenna’s photo essay, she writes, “For so long after my rape I wasn’t able to even begin healing because I had put such intense blame on myself.”
“I still haven’t told my mom,” says Jenna. “I know that she will blame herself for letting me go on that trip.” But the more she talks about her past, she says, the easier it gets to do so, and she does intend to share her story with her mom eventually.
Both Jenna and Jessica say they have been empowered by Goff-LaFontaine’s photos. They prefer the term “survivor,” rather than “victim.” Both believe that teaching the younger generation of boys that a woman’s body is not theirs to take is a start to the end of rape culture.
“We have activism flowing through our veins,” says Jessica.
With a positive reaction from students and staff, Cabrillo has asked Goff-LaFontaine to extend the length of the exhibit past April into the end of the spring semester for more people to see. The exhibit is also in the SAC East building, in the waiting area, and at other spots around Cabrillo. Goff-LaFontaine is looking to put the exhibit up in high schools and other venues in the community.
The ‘Speaking Out’ exhibit continues at Cabrillo College Library and other locations at Cabrillo College. Cabrillo is hosting “Denim Day” on Wednesday, April 29, encouraging students and others to wear denim as part of an international campaign protesting the 1998 Italian court decision which overturned a rape conviction because the woman attacked had been wearing jeans. Go to cabrillo.edu for details.
PHOTO: Photographer Jan Goff-LaFontaine documents women survivors of sexual assault in her exhibit ‘Speaking Out’ at Cabrillo College Library. Pictured here is Jessica, who spoke to Cabrillo classes about her experience. JAN GOFF-LAFONTAINE
