130. The Art Episode: How Art Can Help Heal Sexual Trauma

I'M THE VILLAIN

Trigger Warning: This episode mentions rape and sexual assault.

This is a heavy episode, and next week's episode will be even heavier. We sit down with Isabel's friend Sunshine to talk about being an artist and the ways in which art can help you process trauma, in this case sexual trauma, and how that very personal expression of self interfaces with the consumers of your art and the outside world. Sunshine displays her art in many different types of venues: she will display her art in the park on the weekends, but she has also had art acquired by corporate art purchasers, such as the FMC building, which is a skyscraper in Philadelphia.

She describes some unexpectedly intense reactions some people have had to her art, from a gaggle of passing frat bros being moved by one of her more abstract paintings about rape, to a woman in a gallery who would up purchasing Sunshine's whole exhibition. We talk about the complicated relationship between art and capitalism, and ultimately for Sunshine, being able to translate that trauma into a means of survival is empowering.

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

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