Greetings from Sadness and Sorrow: Trauma and Scars

Our life experiences, personal history, family dynamics, and cultural and/or religious traditions shape and define who we are over time. Having both positive and negative impacts on our understanding of “self”, we respond to the world around us based on how we are shaped. But, a question remains…What happens when we collide with unexpected traumatic events or experience agonizing sorrow or loss? These distressing traumatic events shape and reshape our character, inward rhythms, and/or emotional state and can alter our outward appearances as well. Sometimes the change can be sudden, while other times it slowly reshapes us.

For almost two decades, I have been working as a Firefighter and Paramedic. During this time, I have seen many instances of trauma, scarring the inside and outside of both victims and survivors. I have seen how these events have reshaped and redefined an understanding of “self,” and ultimately have rewritten many personal stories. This exhibition, Greetings from Sadness and Sorrow: Trauma and Scars, explores trauma in the lives of ordinary people and also the impact on those that remain.

The conceptual components of each display were carefully considered to explore each topic and illicit a response from the audience in order to spark a greater narrative.  A theme in particular that I have woven through this exhibit is the use of the ordinary postcard; it is a simple and common way to communicate, but in this case, it becomes the main communication between the person involved in the trauma and a survivor. 

Each diorama, Intentional, Unintentional, Self-imposed and Coercive, along with the other parts of this exhibition, is designed to have the audience enter into, as much as they are able, the story and see themselves in each of the events. As a way to add layers of understanding, a greater insight into the human condition, and a collaboration between disciplines, I asked Lucinda M. Dugger to explore and create poems to accompany each of the dioramas. The poems are written from the perspective of a survivor of the trauma. It’s important to understand that many of these dioramas are compiled from true events, collected over years of work in the field of emergency medical response. Names and locations have been left out to be compliant with HIPPA regulations.