my project, which I've titled "Heavy Coat" represents my experience with trauma (specifically grief) and simultaneously connects to things I've learned about in my class.
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(the title is inspired by a line of a poem that reads as follows: "grief is just love in a heavy coat.")
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- the use of red wax represents the blood of innocent people caught in genocide (any war or attack) and the guilt that comes with loss (WWII as a whole.).
- the use of white wax represents the innocence of grief. the white candle has more of a personal connection :)
- the kernels in two shapes on the platform are the interactive aspect, as kernels were used by religious/Christian people as punishment when praying following confessing a sin (having to kneel on them hurts. a lot.). they also just represent religion as a whole because in most cases, it's the only thing victims of war and trauma have left to believe in.
- the wax on the kernels represent the pain from repenting sin and the repetitiveness of war and genocide. "From time immemorial men have followed with blind loyalty the strong men who had the power of money and of armies. Even while battlefields were piled high with their own dead they have tilled the lands of the rulers and have been robbed of the fruits of their labor. They have built palaces and pyramids, temples and cathedrals that held no real shrine of liberty." Hellen Keller, Strike Against War
q: how do you process grief? a: I run from it until it finds me in the middle of a sunny street on a beautiful day