Tanji Gilliam

Tanji’s project, do you have any scars?/The Architecture of Violence, is a photography, video, and literary project that gives voice to women who have been impacted by domestic violence, broadly defined. She sees this act of sharing and speaking out in and of itself as both an act of social change and a catalyst for larger movements coming out of the historic stereotyping of black women’s bodies as sexually available, and the disciplined silences around rape and other forms of domestic violence. The art exhibition and art catalogue/manuscript project investigates the legacy of gender violence in an autoethnographic social network of 50 black women friends and family members. Using found and original studio photographs, architectural records and imagery of homes, interviews, survey data, and silent film, this project documents the story of these women and re-theorizes ‘domestic violence’ and the domestic space to incorporate different forms of violence that take place within multiple conceptions of home, including one’s own body. She hopes that this work will encourage other circles and communities of black women and promote dialogue and inspire healing.