Wednesday
11 November
The temperature
has plummeted today. A thick blanket of cloud clogs the skyscrapers. Day two proves
to be our best yet. Someone tells me that New Yorkers are slow to get going,
but when they do it gets serious. Estimate 2,000 visitors since we opened.
Reams of questionnaires completed. Greenbacks in buckets.
Our volunteers
are so committed they hold JOURNEY together. It’s a tough job. The messages are
so brittle. The questions so mercurial. The answers so inadequate. You have to
deal with visitors on multitude of levels. It takes a strange mixture of
empathy, sensitivity and bravery. Some people just want to be left alone.
Others are begging for support – even though they don’t say it out loud. One
volunteer listened to a woman in tears. She had been sexually abused as a child
and her experience in JOURNEY triggered a flood of buried associations. And
physically, the cold is fine if you are in your office and just popping out for
lunch. But to stand for hours in the street and deal with distressed and
disorientated people requires an elegant resilience. Here are some of the
volunteers’ thoughts:
Sara
Journey NYC is
my first Journey. I had not seen it before. Seeing it for real - and especially
getting the public reaction - makes all the preparatory work worth it. People
coming through have been amazing in their honest responses, and it has made me
realise how far this issue reaches throughout society. So many visitors have
come to talk and so many have offered to volunteer, and that has been the best
part of the NYC journey for me.
Izzie
This is a very
powerful and clever way to bring this issue to the public eye. The very
different approaches of the artists and the multi-sensory nature of the
installation add to its impact. I am profoundly moved by the story told, and
appalled by the fact that this can happen at all.
Kathryn
As someone who
is interested in increasing awareness of women’s issues, I felt coming to NYC
and volunteering for JOURNEY was a great opportunity. It was very moving to
witness the response of so many visitors. Especially as a mother of teenage
daughters, it gave me the opportunity to share in the emotional impact the
exhibit brings to others. My three-day involvement was powerful and
enlightening. It gave me a sense of being part of bringing awareness about trafficking,
and sharing with those who know these horrors.
Steven
This experience
has taught me that trafficking happens to such an extent, people need to experience
the exhibit and come to the conclusion that something significant needs to be
done.
Visitors arrive
at the HBF tent bristling with stories. One tells us that she lives in Ukraine
for part of the year and knows Moldova well – where Elena comes from. She says
that in the Ukraine many people regard trafficking as a noble profession.
Another visitor says that she works with nursing organisations all over the
world and has a plan to get 15 million nurses to recognise signs of trafficking.
This is so interesting because trafficked people live in fear of so many things
they make themselves invisible. Kate Winslet came today and Dr Michael gave her
the guided tour. She was shocked by the emotional intensity of JOURNEY and asking
what she could do to help. A delegation of about 40 people from the Mayor’s
Office begin to gather, arriving breathlessly from civic appointments all over
the city. We give them copies of the JOURNEY newspaper to read-while-they-wait,
and their mood visibly changes - from the excitement of meeting & greeting to perplexed and puzzled introspection.
Dr Michael is
talking to a group of visitors at the HBF tent and he elaborates on Elena’s
story. The Foundation does not focus on the stigma, shame and trauma, but on
the aspiration, the good things they are desperate to be reminded they do still
have. Survivors want to know there is something decent and uncontaminated left
inside them. Elena wanted to know how she should talk about her experience. “Do
I tell my boyfriend I have had sex with 4,000 men?” Dr Michael referred Elena to
Emma Thompson who was working with a group of trafficked women on storytelling.
The trauma is so profound, conventional therapies just don’t work. The Foundation
gives survivors a sense of normality that helps them engage with life, and they
respond with strengths they hardly knew they had.
Another feast of
visitor comments today. I perch on a chair in the gutter of the HBF tent
tapping responses into a laptop while volunteers around me listen to cathartic
outpourings. Many people allude to something dark in their past that JOURNEY
has provoked. I begin to get a sense of the labyrinthine insidiousness of
trauma. It doesn’t just stop at the survivor; it warps their lifelong
relationships.
“The whole exhibit was gut wrenching. The smells in
the bedroom were overwhelming and bought back memories of trauma I experienced.”
“Thank you for this powerful exhibit. I am a
volunteer advocate in the emergency room at two local hospitals working with
survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.”
“I have my own experience of working in the sex
industry. I was very moved by the exhibit and would like to get involved.”
“The most moving part was when I looked at myself in
the mirror.”
“The loneliness I felt in the reflection room was so
strong that I couldn’t stay for more than a few seconds.”
“It’s the most terrible thing that can be done to a
human being.”
“And I thought I had problems.”
“Just being in a fictionalised depiction of this
world was horrible.”
“I was very troubled by the questions the exhibit
raised. I became the voyeur.”
“I work as a librarian in a maximum-security prison
and would like to do a presentation for my students who write our jail
newspaper.”
“Thank you so much for such a stunning, significant
and horrific piece of advocacy.”
“The sounds, smells, and filth was overwhelming and
terribly upsetting.”
“Very shocking – and I come from a Colombia where
this is commonplace.”
“The world is insane.”
“I am thinking about the dark circle that you walk
slowly into. It leaves a hole in my mind.”
“I cannot understand why some men, even decent men
engage in sexual abuse of women.”
“The violence and the abuse and the trauma and the
misogyny have got to stop!”
“I wanted to cry and vomit at the same time.”
“Time and space have never felt so impending,
fleeting, hurtful, helpful.”
“It is a very sad journey. I hope it travels to many
places. I am holding back the tears but crying deep inside. I am glad I saw
this with my 19-year-old daughter. Thank you so much.”
