The Year I Became A Tree (Daphne & me)
THE YEAR I BECAME A TREE is a polyphonic installation of drawings, poetry and quotes that weaves together stories of abuse of the female body on three layers: the mythologies of Daphne and Flora who turned to trees, the story of what happened when abuse got called out at the KABK this year, and Laurence’s personal story of burnout in the wake of assault. Through the metaphor of the tree, the installation seeks to express the affective consequences of abuse on the body: rage within frozen matter, unable to move or speak, crooked and vined emotions tangled up with grief. But to be a tree also means to be connected to a mycorrhizal network of other stories, and when those roots are exposed, those stories hold the power of collective resistance.