Laura Magnusson:
My inspiration
Still from Blue (2019) by Laura Magnusson, an experimental short film shot entirely underwater, 70 feet beneath the surface of Cozumel, Mexico. Alone on an ocean “tundra,” wearing a protective clamshell-like parka, a women arduously moves across the afterlife of sexual violence. Credit: Liquid Motion Film.
How can artistic practice communicate the complex afterlife of sexual violence through affective means, extending beyond word-based forms?
My doctoral research-creation emerges from my own experiences navigating institutional systems after sexual violence. From issuing a police statement to undergoing a forensic exam to testifying in court, I was asked to compartmentalize myself—again and again—to fit the system’s terms. The pursuit of factual truth actively excluded my felt experience.
As an artist, I turned to visual and material forms that might communicate and archive embodied knowledge of trauma. I began to ask how artistic media might open space for such knowledge to circulate and be witnessed.