Speak Your Truth
Traveling Postcards Exhibition
See how a small action the size of a postcard, can affect powerful, positive change.
Over 5000 unique Traveling Postcards™ have been hand-made in our healing arts workshops over the last ten years and sent to individual survivors as gifts of solidarity and healing.
Overview
The Speak Your Truth exhibition seeks to raise awareness and offer healing for survivors of Gender-Based Violence around the world by creating a personal experience of empathy and empowerment through the healing arts.
​
Our yearlong online exhibition will culminate in October with a live event at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington DC, on October 4th, 2024 exhibiting original postcards, photos and stories of resilience.
​
​
Exhibition Details
Opening Oct 4th, 2024
6pm
Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery
Washington DC
How to Get Involved with the Exhibition Now:
​
​
Survey
We want to know what matters to you. What would you like to see in this exhibition?
​
The Idea of a Postcard
The postcard is a symbol of communication.
Much like social media today, the postcard allowed for faster and easier connections to be made.
​
Intrigued by the concept of sharing personal stories on a limited space with an image on the front and a message on the back, the idea of Traveling Postcards™ took hold.
Approaching the topic of Gender- Based Violence with the idea that every individual has something to offer, we began creating small handmade pieces of art the size of a postcard, that contained a message of solidarity for a survivor.
A workshop was designed around the sewing circle concept, where survivors and their allies could gather to make something for a community member in need, and where authentic self- expression was generated in the art making process.
Art & Activism
Engaging in a topic like GBV that is a public health crisis and a human rights violation can be overwhelming. Creating a safe, personal and positive experience within a workshop setting generates the possibility that everyone can make change.
Engaging in the art making process uses the language of art to express feelings that are too difficult to put into words. Our resilience is not silenced. Our art speaks for us and our voices are shared widely.
The Traveling Postcards™ workshop has traveled to domestic violence shelters and aid agencies throughout the US and multiple countries where cards are created and exchanged.
We are often invited into spaces where abuse has been normalized, but because postcards are seen as non-threatening, we gain access to voices inside that are silenced.
​
Our goal is to amplify those voices and make sure that their messages are heard.
Art & Healing
Trauma creates a real need for self-expression. Feelings that have been lost are able to be expressed through the art making process.
​
Creativity can break down old structures and patterns of behavior to create new ones. One may think they are “not an artist” or can’t participate because they are ‘not enough’, but find that they can. They discover pride in their creation and in themselves.
"Creating, witnessing, and sharing my card felt like a mini showcase of my soul. My card contains my whole journey as a survivor - from wholeness to brokenness and finding my way home to wholeness again."
Workshop Participant
Turning difficult spaces into healing spaces can be a powerful force for transformation.
Creating a safe and sacred space to hold a workshop with an abundance of beautiful art materials, allows for the possibility to find the inherent beauty in all things.
In our workshops, participants find healing in the appreciation of their own unique beauty and have that beauty witnessed by their peers and a global community of allies who care.
Every workshop participant is the creator and decision maker of their postcard. Each time they have the option to choose a shape, color or a language and decide where to place it on their card, they are empowered. Healing comes from spontaneously creating new life from what begins as a blank postcard and turns into a beautiful portrait of one’s best self.
We ask ' What do you want to say to a survivor that you will never meet or hear back from?"
​
Often after making a card, an artist will see reflected back in their work, their unique and powerful wisdom.
This self portrait becomes a gift that is shared and an act of service that is empowering.
Your Voice Travels
Every postcard travels to a survivor of gender-based violence. Each person who receives a card is invited to make one. Placing your finished art into the symbolic suitcase joins your voice with thousands of others who are sharing and sending their personal wisdom and solidarity.
Each one of us has the power to use our unique voice to make positive change.
Every postcard created signifies that a survivor is believed, that they are never alone and that their healing journey matters.
Not staying silent, resisting the shame that comes with victimization and knowing we are powerful can help move our actions towards creating justice and safety for everyone.
​
What Do You Want to Say?
We hope you will join us!
Add your voice to the the collective wisdom traveling around the globe to help end gender-based violence.
