'You Are Not Alone'

Texas State University’s Flex Space Art Gallery will be home to an interactive art piece designed to bring awareness to sexual assault.

“You are Not Alone” is a 3-D project by Texas State Art Education Major Annette Essler. The idea for the art piece came from a 3D project in which Essler was asked to combine two objects with a connective material. She tied together a high heel and Converse high top with a red bed sheet.

“The idea behind it was sexual assault is something that can happen to any type of person,” Essler said. “It can happen to girls wearing high heels or dirty sneakers and it can happen to guys as well.”

Before she started the project, Essler said a few of her friends had confided in her stories of their personal encounters with sexual assault and harassment. But after the project more people started to open up to her about their personal experiences.

She said the project was a response to how sexual assault is often viewed through what the victim could have done to prevent it – where they were, what they were doing, if they had been drinking, and often what they had been wearing.

The knotted blood-red sheets not only symbolized the violence of the act, Essler said, but the anger, shame and frustration that victims often feel in the aftermath of an assault. And the shoes represented the vast diversity of the victims – which for Essler, was the central theme of her piece: Sexual assault can happen to anyone.

“The point of this project is that sexual assault doesn’t really have anything to do with what the victim is doing,” Essler said. “That’s why it is called ‘You Are Not Alone,’ it can happen to anyone, it can happen to you. No matter how they dress or how they act, it doesn’t matter.”

Essler invites people in the community to come donate or tie up shoes in solidarity and support with victims of sexual assault today from 12 to 6 p.m. or Monday and Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. After the exhibition, the shoes will be donated to charity.

Senior Lecturer for the School of Art and design at Texas State University Caprice Pierucci will also be displaying a piece in the exhibit that is a rebirth of a project her late mother, Louise Pierucci Holeman, created in the 70s.

“In the late 70s, my mother was teaching a paper making workshop and did a collaborative piece with the students,” Pierucci said.

The participants were each supposed to write a secret on a piece of paper, which her mother would read and then partially tear up and mix in with the paper pulp. She would then pull out a segment from the pulp slurry and form it over sticks, weaving the torn up pieces of paper and pulp back and forth between the sticks.

“Some of the secrets were basic or silly, but there were two secrets about sexual assault and this really was moving to my mom and she confided that with me,” Pierucci said. “This made an impression on me, which has stuck with me all these years.”

Pierucci said, in the past couple of years, she has had more and more students creating work about their experiences with sexual assault. And when Essler’s proposal for “You Are Not Alone” was accepted for the Flex space, she said she was struck by the differences in attitude about sexual assault between now and when she was a teenager in the 70s.

“Back in the 70s you didn’t a talk about that, it was big secret,” Pierucci said. “I lived through the 70s and we didn’t have a term for ‘date rape’ and if it happened to you, you might even blame yourself.”

Pierucci’s mother’s piece was entitled “Secrets.” Her piece is entitled ”No Secrets – Hopes, Wishes, Prayers and Reconciliations.” Pierucci said this was a way of resurrecting her mother’s piece, but with a more hopeful and healing tone.

“I really believe that art heals, I believe that for me, I’ve been through some things and I put it into my artwork and somehow I think it helps me come to term with things,” she said.

The creative process, you can’t help to put your personal experience into the art.”

Pierucci hopes that the community will add their messages to her piece during the exhibition. The piece will be made in the soft sculpture space prior to the actual exhibition. All are welcome to write their messages on paper pulp and then weave the pieces of pulp however they want on the lateral rounds.

“You are Not Alone” uses shoes tied and connected to each other using red bed sheets to talk about the prevalence and impact of sexual assault. The variety of shoes incorporated in the piece is meant to demonstrate the universality of victims, while the red sheets serve a dual purpose of conveying the emotions associated with the act of sexual assault and the impact on survivors.

A performance piece by student Faith Flores about coming to terms with a sexual assault entitled "It Is Not Your Fault” will be performed during the Opening Reception for “You Are Not Alone” on Wednesday, March 13 at 6 p.m.

The performance piece shows people in paper masks and breast plates, which makes them appear as anonymous figures. The masks and breast plates are the personification of the assault. During the performance, the figures in the mask ominously surround the artist, they move around slowly and make her uncomfortable. The artist is coming face to face with her past pain and suffering while the chorus is chants, “It is not your fault.” After the artist shows obvious pain and discomfort and begins to cry, the figures start to comfort the artist. The figures and the artist are able to come to grip with what had happened to them, and they allow a collective physical comfort and affirmation to calm them.

“I wanted the performance to be a window for the viewer to see how traumatic events can lingered on and manifest time and time again,” Flores said of the piece.

The exhibit will also feature information and resources for those that are dealing with sexual assault. They will have information on the Texas State Counseling Center, Hays-Caldwell Women’s Center and the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).

The opening reception of “You Are Not Alone” will be on Wednesday, March 13 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. The Flex Space Gallery is on the second floor of Joan Cole Mitte Building, at 233 Sessoms St., on the Texas State University campus. The exhibit will be up until Friday, March 15.