SEXUAL VIOLENCE
Hitting the right nerve is a tricky matter.
Victims are never to blame for assault. But often they feel ashamed and guilty, and don’t really know where to turn to.
We applaud the initiative by the University of Ghent, to reach out to victims of sexual violence and raise awareness in the broadest way possible. We were trusted to come up with a creative concept and play a crucial role in sharing their utterly important message.
Expressing complex emotions and sharing a message that is capable of hitting the right nerve is a tricky matter. Dealing with problematics like sexual violence risks delivering a stereotypical portrait of the subject, making it unrelatable, or worse: shocking and upsetting to victims. We set out to construct a visual metaphor that would start out mundane, trivial and borderline funny, but delivering a heavy punchline that would make you think twice about what you just witnessed.
During production there was an interesting and constant dialogue going on: whether the images were too explicit or not explicit enough. It made the project a continuous balancing exercise, but we managed to find the exact tension where it all comes together. So far, we have witnessed very different reactions, and we are honestly intrigued to find out yours.
