Signs of significance
Commemorating contemporary injustices not institutional histories
Raped here plaque
Laser-cut frosted-acrylic bolted using zinc nuts, bolts and washers to vinyl-mounted aluminium, with ability to be permanently bolted onto an external wall
30cm x 30cm
2025
About this work
Commemorative signage highlights and frames histories in ways which inform our societal present, such as London’s Blue Plaque Scheme.
These publicly facing vehicles of story telling could alternatively be used to lay bare well-known but little-discussed contemporary injustices and power disparities which exist within our society (i.e. ‘taboos’).
I wanted to imagine a world in which these plaques are erected on residential and commercial addresses where these injustices have happened in reality, such as reported rapes. I specifically want to take this imagined concept and look at it through the social paradigm of male-on-male rape, inviting in wider engagement with (often under-heard) discourse.
I drew directly from my lived experience as survivor of male-on-male rape.
Raped here print series
Lithography ink on paper
Various sizes | 2025
Collaboration
The red prints are designed for other rape survivors to write directly onto them the location and date of the crime. This will empower survivors to regain ownership of their narrative, whilst maintaining their anonymity – if they wish to do so – by using my art as their vehicle.
Democratisation
The blue print has been made by making Home Office and Metropolitan Police recruitment adverts, editing them on Photoshop, and using the resulting image to laser cut a printing plate onto acrylic. This is a commentary on the damaging juxtaposition between the police’s willingness to re-traumatise victims through intense ‘video recorded interviews (VRIs)’ compare to their lack of action in only charging less than three-percent of alleged rapists (stats source: Rape Crisis England & Wales).