Paper short abstract:

The emotional maps of apartments/houses created by victims of domestic abuse allow us to question the idea of home as safe place of one’s own. In addition, these maps can be seen as a new methodological tool for capturing painful memories.

Paper long abstract:

In frames of our exhibition Supra of Her Own about invisibility of gender-based violence against women (for more information see: https://supraofherown.wordpress.com) we asked eight women; victims of domestic abuse, to create the emotional maps of their apartments/houses and in that way share with us their painful memories. Women were free to choose the emotions they were mapping and the colors that were signifying them.

We wish to use these (until now unpublished materials) to question some, often taken for granted assumptions about home, as for instance, the idea of home as a safe place of one's own. In fact, for many women who experienced domestic abuse a home is a neither place where they feel safe nor "at home". It is interesting that often women in different ways, sometimes in imaginary ones, recreate an equivalent of a space of their own within the context they live in.

In addition, we propose to look at the emotional maps created by women as a new methodological tool that allows capturing of painful memories in non-linear, anecdotic, and sometimes humoristic ways