Muffled violations: a practice-based exploration of artworks embedded with the traumatic memory of acquaintance rape

Abstract

Muffled violations is an artistic exploration of the trauma endured by a victim of acquaintance rape. Through qualitative and practice-based approaches, this study argues that viewers may encounter affects of sexual violation and respond empathetically with the artist-researcher through an assemblage of found objects and video works in an exhibition. The artworks offer an account of rape more attuned to the psychological impact experienced by victims, rather than that of reports on sexual brutality found in journalistic media. This study also reviews a selection of contemporary works made by female artists, to investigate how art implicitly, through its particular communicative strengths can be regarded as an affective means through which representations and perceptions of sexual violence can be reconfigured. Through the making of art, this study aims to bring attention to alternative narratives of rape that often go undocumented and to position these voices within a South African context of pervasive sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).