A MIRror of Dread is a body of artwork and truth-telling rooted in lived experience. It is an autonomous action rooted in the liberation that comes from reclaiming autonomy.
Through art, personal experiences of violence, coercive control, trauma, recovery, and resistance are transformed into opportunities for awareness, education, accountability, and prevention. What was once intended to silence, diminish, and control is made visible, examinable, and impossible to ignore.
The work is not created to seek revenge or sympathy, but to bear witness, reclaim authorship of the narrative, and contribute to broader conversations about intimate partner violence, coercive control, and the importance of recognizing patterns before further harm occurs. By transforming private, often hidden experiences into public knowledge, awareness becomes understanding, understanding becomes empowerment, and lived experience becomes a catalyst for critical conversations about intimate partner violence, coercive control, misogyny, accountability, and social change.
The work presented here exists at the intersection of art, lived experience, and education. It is both a record of survival and an act of transformation.
Art as witness.
Art as transformation.
Art as power.
The power of this work does not lie in revisiting the abuse. It lies in refusing to allow the abuse to have the final word. Through that process, acts intended to diminish and control become opportunities for understanding, education, and empowerment.
"There is no freedom without truth, and simply speaking the truth is an act of resistance."
"There is no peace without liberation."
- The 8 Stages of Homicide — how it plays out.
- "why so many abuse victims don’t “just leave"
- Take all measures
- ACCOUNTABILITY IS NOT REVENGE, IT IS PREVENTION
- Art as Power
- Coercive control
- Concerning behaviors
- Types of Abuse
- CPTSD and PTSD
- Recovery
- Establishing coercive control as violence