‘In my artwork, each photograph is a part of my recovery from PTSD. Each photo is a part of my recovery from PTSD and I need to put each picture in its right place to accept and recover from EMOTIONS. Once I did, I could take back My CONTROL by OWNING my EMOTIONS. The NIGHTMARES and WAKING up SCREAMING stopped. (POWERLESSNESS). There’s me, when I was young, and then there’s me now, looking out into the past – and then there is everything that has happened to me in between…
– Terri
- Title: One Extreme to Another
- Artist: Terri
- Year: 2024
- Medium: Photographic digital print on PVC
It’s frustrating and restricting being deaf – can’t say what you want to say and can’t get people to listen to what you’re saying. I chose the red colour after speaking to a Deaf woman at a hearing impairment workshop who said red symbolises the silence. For me red is the silence that is kept up by society about abuse; and the silence I kept up myself for so long – I thought I was the only person who ever experienced what I experienced.
I’ve included Mum’s funeral notice because that’s how I became homeless. I’d grown up in domestic violence and addiction, I started drinking when I was ten. Mum died when I was ten and I was sent to live with my elder sister and she sent me to welfare as uncontrollable. The photo of the door is like the warehouse where I first stayed when I became homeless and moved to the Cross, represented by the Coca Cola sign photo. The Adult Shop sign is about the sex work I did there, just to survive. I included my portrait wearing ‘SELF-MADE’ because I brought myself up. I learned how to survive, and I survived. The eye is about people only seeing what they want to see. I was assaulted in the Cross; half my face was missing and people just looked at me and didn’t see me, didn’t ask how I was, or what happened. I’d had a head injury, woke up from a coma, lost my hearing, had to learn to walk again. The mat with Home on it is the home, the structure and security I never had… until now. One day I was sitting in the gutter, thinking I don’t want to be like this anymore. People turned up and helped me move to a new place and the next day I woke up in my new place and something was missing… I’d lost the urge to use drugs, the compulsion.
And that was the turning point. It’s like one extreme to the other – I was homeless and now I have a flat and I’m working as a school crossing supervisor. I feel totally comfortable, a completely different person because now I’ve recovered from PTSD.
Everything has changed, having my home and my job. I feel blessed.’
– Terri