Emily Wiethorn

Artist Statement

How do you tell a story with no beginning, middle, or end? Six years ago, I was drugged, abducted, and raped for several hours by a man who remains a stranger to me even six years later. Those minutes exist mostly as black holes in my mind. Memory is challenging when it’s been taken from you. The Death of You and Me is an examination of memory, suffering, and the effects of trauma. When trauma happens to us, we’re taught to accept it, learn from it, and move on. These images exist outside the confines of reality in the nonlinear path of healing and recovery, and the often suffocating feeling of navigating and understanding the effects of PTSD. How do trauma and imprisonment change our understanding of ourselves? How does the trauma we suffer change those closest to us? The memories I have left from that night haunt and challenge me. As a survivor of sexual assault and abduction, I use this body of work to speak my own truth and to feel the anger society says I must move on from.