Bio

Australia IIPoem by Audre Lorde

‘And when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive’

I spent my childhood in Australia and have since lived in different parts of Greece. I am married and a mother and currently sharing my time between a small island in the Cyclades and Athens. I have a degree in Organisation and Business Administration, have studied psychology at the Open University of England and I have further attended a Masters Programme in Clinical-Counselling Psychology in Athens. More recently I worked as a career counselor *, but before re-entering education I ran a language school and worked as a language teacher for 24 years. In 2009 I curated a photo exhibition, The Invisible Children; for the local Industrial Museum** and in 2007 I published a book, Let me be, which includes drawings I had made as part of initially processing extremely painful memories and emotions. In 2012 I started creating posters, using drawings, artwork and collages I had made since 2007, which I then displayed on street walls both locally and in other places. All my artwork reflects my experiences, my struggles for safety and battles against abuse and violation of human rights, but also the knowledge and the insight I constantly gain, concerning trauma and healing. At the beginning of 2014 I started creating a new series of drawings*** reprocessing themes and material and aspects of Let me be. These new drawings are posted immediately as I complete each one and this more direct display of artwork is inherently connected to my current battles and journey towards healing and restoration. Both the book and this site, as well as, the display of the posters on street walls have brought about severe and ongoing harassment and further victimization, but for me like many other survivors breaking the silence is inevitably a ‘one way road’ towards empowerment and safety because secrecy and silence allows and encourages the perpetration and continuation of all types of abuse and the violation of inherent rights and boundaries. Valerie Sinason writes publish and be saved (cited in Epstein, Schwartz & Wingfield Schwartz, 2011) and Mike Lew claims that secrecy is the cement that holds abuse firmly in place’ (Victims No Longer, 2004).

* http://cyclades24.gr/index.php/component/k2/item/7976-katagelia-apo-th-symvoulo-apasxolhsh

** Εικόνα6-036     Εικόνα6-034    DSC00235

***  AP