Reflections From The Curator of ‘Let’s Celebrate Resilience’

In January of this year, I founded a group called Brave and Believed which is comprised of students who openly denounce sexual violence through social media outlets and blog posts. Our collective practice begins with actively observing and critically analyzing what we believe to be the societal structure that produces and permits sexual violence, or rape culture. It is important to Brave and Believed that our readership understands the importance of uniting our respective communities in order to continue supporting survivors of all genders and sexualities. 

On Thursday, Oct. 25, Brave and Believed hosted an event in M Gallery called “Let’s Celebrate Resilience.” The theme of this event was to celebrate the resilience of the survivor. Historically, accounts of sexual violence have been both questioned and silenced. This has led to underreporting and feelings of guilt and shame for survivors. The intent behind this event was to continue to spread awareness about this public health issue as well as soak in the “power” of the survivor. 

Too often, when we talk about sexual violence on campus, it feels like something heavy is sitting in the room — feelings of discomfort, sympathy and empathy among many things — that leaves individuals either stoic, highly reactionary or neutral as they process the information being presented to them. 

For this event, I aimed to make it interactive and engaging as guests actively traversed the space. It is important to me that those who attended the event walked away with the impression that although the stories conveyed can be disheartening, that doesn’t take away from the strength that a survivor has and demonstrates every single day. This event had everything from audio recordings to paintings, all of which illustrated that regardless of what happened to the survivor, they continue to push forward and persevere. Like I have been saying and will continue to say, survivors are some of the strongest individuals that I know — and that is definitely something worth shedding light on and celebrating.

Editor’s note: Arts & Academics Editor April Qian participated in organizing the event. She played no role in reporting.