This is the most impactful email we have received this week.
These photos accompanied it.
Forgiving is a return to traumatic memories and experience that I endured in my first romantic relationship more than a decade ago.
Unprocessed, my trauma manifested in PTSD along with guilt and self-blame. By digitally manipulating images, I reshape and rework my archival materials to undo the simplified reality those photographs represent.
And through the photographs of my body parts that often experience PTSD manifestations, I am restoring the connection between the events and the emotional upheaval.
Being a spectator and subject, I allow myself to look at the pain from an intimate distance to dissect the biggest challenge, which is to forgive myself.
This project is a history of my own voice, from the moment I lost it to the process of regaining it.
Mayya Kelova
