The Spiral of Containment: Rape's Aftermath is a travelling art exhibition that highlights the impact of rape through photography, an immersive soundscape and a hologram. The project was created over the course of several years, and uses art to express trauma. Each image is the visual translation of a rape survivor's personal story - a collective outcry of shared experience. The multi-media immersive and experiential exhibition by Mexican-Canadian photographer, cinematographer and foreign correspondent, Elisa Iannacone, featuring 25 hauntingly beautiful portraits of rape survivors, opens at South Africa’s iconic home of contemporary justice, CONSTITUTION HILL on 14 May 2022, with an exhibition specially curated for installation in the 25 Isolation Cells of NUMBER 4 PRISON. THE SPIRAL OF CONTAINMENT (SPRIAL) was first exhibited at The OXO Tower Bargehouse in London in 2018, to an overwhelming response from media and public alike. Consisting of 24 photographs, soundscapes and installations, and one holographic projection (self-portrait), each work in the SPRIAL suite of photographs features a rape survivor, in a fictionally-constructed portrait - magical-realist in style. The image drew from each subject’s recollections of their experiences, reframed and reworked into layered statements of empowerment, agency, and identity. The portraits were photographed in a range of locations and countries, including seven in South Africa. The Spiral project, and method, evolved from Iannacone’s own experience of rape, and therapeutic recovery. The 24 images are “colour-coded” into the 24 primary, secondary and tertiary colours in the colour wheel - with her own image, a 25th, monochromatic hologram. Iannacone funded the project, which took five years to complete, from her work in war zones.
ENQUIRIES:
To RSVP and attend the Launch event on the 14th of May 2022, email David- david@conhill.org.za
During Saturday’s Role, radio host Renos Nicos Spanoudes chats to Elisa Iannacone. Listen to the podcast to find out more!
