Anthe Hermans space for reaction

Can you describe your research project?

With my research project ‘space for reaction’, I aim to develop a physical and emotional space for resistance and survival strategies deployed by victimized partners of a violent and abusive intimate relationship. In this project I reflect on the relation between lived experience, agency and empowerment through a feminist phenomenological lens and from the perspective of IPVA peers and my own experience with the subject.

The term ‘space for reaction’ refers to an underexposed aspect of the experience of the victimized partner: through different means they look for ways to resist and retaliate against their coercive partner in an attempt to maintain their agency within the relationship. This happens in physical or non-physical ways. In this sense, a space for reaction tries to break with the myth of the ideal victim which is linked to characteristics of passivity, femininity, weakness and heteronormativity.

As a visual artist-researcher I’m exploring what various shapes resistance can take and how to bring this into a space for everyone who is concerned with the topic of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA). I love to do this through blending different layers of fantasy and reality together. For example, I researched the format of a role-playing game where participants can enter an imaginative world through a fictional character that they create based on a character sheet. I found this an interesting framework for working with reenactments of memories and (day)dreams linked to resistance.

Why have you chosen this topic?

The ‘how’ and ‘why’ question when choosing a topic are closely intertwined in my research projects. So, my answer is a bit of both.

It took me a while to fully and openly, which felt so blunt to me, integrate this topic into my artistic practice and research. I was looking for an angle or a way in into this heavy, private and for a lot of people, including myself, uncomfortable topic of violence and abuse within an intimate relationship. The topic is often shielded from the public or outside world by shame or the inability to talk about it. Or that’s what I felt towards the topic and in relation to my own experience as a victimized partner. In previous work, certain aspects of domestic violence, embodiment and the private/public spheres were already incorporated but I never dealt with it in a direct manner. More than a year ago I came across two books that set off the project of a ‘space for reaction’.

The first book is ‘In the Dream House’ by Carmen Maria Machado in which she recalls her experience of domestic abuse within a same-sex relationship through different horror and writing genres. I constantly came back to her book because I felt so connected to this story and experience in how it could portray so accurately the feelings I felt back then. It was the first time someone grasped my experience so accurately. I wanted everyone else to dive in the book with me and show others all these small nuances and the culmination of little and big abusive and violent actions there are in a violent and abusive intimate relationship.

The second book, which I found in the RoSa Library in Brussels, was ‘Queering Narratives of Domestic Violence and Abuse: Victims and/or Perpetrators?’ by Catherine Donovan and Rebecca Barnes. They introduced ‘Space for Reaction’ into the diagram ‘Wheel of Power and Control’ that highlights how victimized partners resist and retaliate. In other IPVA literature the focus lies mostly on the passivity, obedience and feminisation of the victimized partner. In a sense it excludes or hinders a lot of victimized partners to recognize themselves (even more in queer relationships). I experienced the portrayal of the ideal victim, instead of being a tool for recognition, more as a fracture that creates self-doubt and disassociation. My actions of resistance and retaliation didn’t fit that image. And so, I was interested in what these resistance and retaliation strategies could entail for myself and others. The project was a way of connecting with others who had similar experiences and exchange knowledge, thoughts and doubts.

What research methods do you use?

I borrow methodologies of speculative fabulation (Haraway), reenactments, and role-playing. All three navigate between the imaginative and the real, embodied experiences and the use of repetition and reiteration as a way of co-learning and connecting to emotions and experiences of past and present.

In my research I was looking for ways to deal with stories, memories and narratives from previous experiences that were recollected by victimized partners and at the same time deal with them in the present. In the beginning of the research, I started more from a documentary-like way of interviewing people to collect experiences of resistance. At a certain point I felt the project became too static or mirroring scientific methods. Actually, through allowing friends in and opening space for joy, I found methods that fitted an artistic intervention. And at the same time, I realized friendship and joy were equally important methods and could simultaneously be forms of resistance and survival. Through the culmination of different visual experiments, coming across certain feminist phenomenology theory texts and creating room for play, did I found fitting methodologies in speculative fabulation, reenactments and role-playing games.

In what way did your research affect your artistic practice?

The research asked for a participatory and collaborative based practice, which had never been a part of my artistic practice. Opening it up to participants during the artistic and research process, as well as making them a part of the work itself, felt very scary in the beginning, because it was so new to me. It’s letting go of control and making space for the unexpected and connection. It was definitely something I had to grow into, and it’s still a continuous learning process. I think it’s important to listen to the research, what it needs to communicate to an audience. This can be the medium you’re working in, the space, which audience, etc. It sounds a bit cheesy, but at times also feels true.

What are you hoping your research will result in, both personally and publicly?

I want to continue working on the role-playing workshops I’ve started at the Research Master of Sint Lucas. The different elements of the role-playing game – character sheet, the role of the game master, the world building – still hold a lot of possibilities to work with as a whole but also as separate entities. Recently I was invited to the Frans Masereel Centre to work on a public poster project. Here, I had the opportunity to focus on the relation between the design and the series of questions that help participants form their fictional character.

Out of the intensive research process came a lot of overarching questions that keep my mind busy and which I want to work with in the coming months. What role can participants play in the making of the workshop instead of just playing it? How do I work with an audience or participants that also have their prejudice about the ideal victim? How can I reach a specific audience that is concerned with IPVA? What can be shared and what stays private for non-workshop participants?

At the same time, I’m also curious to work more collaboratively with other artists that work around similar topics to help carry each other’s projects. It would be nice to share knowledge and the weight of the topic.