Letters to the big room : Christine

Wednesday, 10 July 2019

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Hello Hayley and Owen,

My journey to the big room is handmade; it’s coloured and textured and ripped and stitched and sketched and etched and painted and imagined… but, forever fuelled by a deep sense of responsibility. Working in forensic therapeutic communities, in prison, I saw many pictures … of blame and shame, pain and punishment, them and us, good and bad, right and wrong, perpetrator and victim… so many divisions, so much fear. I have a knowledge that I sensed my own responsibility in all of the above, and yet felt silenced in any attempt to be curious. 

So this big room for me is a space for us to be open and imaginative and creative, and to pay attention to how we hinder rather than help, punish rather than love,… 

I'm curious about the legacy of my punitive experience… That experience has, ultimately brought me to the big room. I arrive as a group of many; there's more to me than I know, or ever can know, and there are parts of me that don't feel as though they belong ‘to me’…  I’m increasingly able to acknowledge a deep need to belong…and connect… I crave community, and a felt sense of connection. My hope, desire, and intention for the big room is personal in origin, and universal in scope.​

Christine

ps when you asked  about artists at the last meeting, Franko B came to mind. In my application to study for my MA in  Art Psychotherapy Practice I wrote about my experience of seeing him (twice)… the images reflect both those occasions and are so linked to my forensic work. I saw him a third time when he had moved away from this period of work, and, interesting, was the only time I saw him with anyone else… and it didn't have the same impact for me. Wanted to share… and link.  Ever in process xxx