Invisible Fractures: The Enduring Trauma of Emotional Abuse New Photography by Rachel Tine
Update: This event is now over, but you can read about it in this photo feature from DigBoston or in The Improper Bostonian, which highlighted it as their featured event for February 2017. Learn more about Rachel’s story in her op-ed in The Provider, which has given us special permission to share it here (PDF).
You can still purchase signed limited edition prints from Rachel Tine here.
Casa Myrna invites you to be among the first to see Invisible Fractures: The Enduring Trauma of Emotional Abuse, photographer Rachel Tine’s powerful portraits of survivors of severe emotional abuse. Don’t miss your chance to experience this beautiful and moving debut solo show by a local up-and-coming photographer. Even better, proceeds from print sales will benefit Casa Myrna’s work supporting survivors of domestic and dating violence and their children.
Join us on Friday, February 3, 2017, from 7 PM to 10 PM at the chic Piano Craft Gallery, located at 793 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, for a special gallery opening reception. Drinks and catering will be provided by local all-stars Emma’s Pizza, Bantam Cider, and Lord Hobo Brewing Co., with complimentary transportation by Fasten. The reception is preceded by an invitation-only VIP reception from 6 PM to 7 PM. At 10 PM, we’ll cross the street for an open after-party at the Verb Hotel’s hip Japanese tavern Hojoko at 1271 Boylston Street.
This event is free, but guests must register through Eventbrite (here) in order to attend. RSVPing to the Facebook event is optional.
Web Bonus! View or print the invitation and poster for this event.
About Invisible Fractures
How does a visual artist represent the harm caused by emotional abuse when—unlike a bruise, a broken bone, a scar—it cannot be seen on the body?
Photographer Rachel Tine collaborated with survivors to make these invisible fractures visible in a series of strikingly unconventional portraits. Each image features idiosyncratic props, clothing, and poses selected by the subject herself. The effect is both dreamily ethereal and starkly moving, as though the viewer has been invited to enter a stranger’s private emotional landscape. Audio recordings in which survivors tell their own stories provide a rich context to their portraits and deepens listeners’ understanding of each survivors’ complex and unique response to the abuse they have experienced.
“Emotional abuse is a hyper-prevalent, severely damaging issue that deserves immediate attention,” Rachel writes. “I am intimately aware of how someone can allow themselves to stay in an abusive relationship. But even though it happens every day, all over the world, it is a rarely discussed.” With Invisible Fractures, Rachel aims to break this silence by empowering survivors to express their conflicting feelings of pain, fear, pride, and hope on their own terms. Through its sensitive artistry and piercing authenticity, Invisible Fractures steadies viewers as they confront the complex fractures emotional abuse leaves in survivors’ sense of themselves, of others, and of their world.
Invisible Fractures is supported in part by a grant from the Awesome Foundation.
About Photographer Rachel Tine
Rachel is an internationally published and award winning photographer with a focus on artistic portraiture. This is her first solo show. Her introduction into the world of professional photography began at the age of 16, when she became the second shooter for Boston’s renowned dark cabaret duo the Dresden Dolls. But only a couple of years later, all of her negatives and equipment were destroyed in a house fire, and as the years passed, she found it harder and harder to imagine picking up a camera again.
Nearly a decade later, in 2012, Rachel stumbled across an abandoned schoolhouse in Reidsville, North Carolina. She was struck by the beauty of its peeling paint, the loneliness of its empty chairs. She decided to shoot it — and she hasn’t stopped shooting since. Her work has appeared in numerous group shows and in publications ranging from Vogue Italia and Dark Beauty, to Buzzfeed and OZY Media, to the Weekly Dig and the Boston Globe. “My life, my art, and what I find beautiful in the world all center around the juxtaposition of desperation and hope,” she writes. “I am in awe of the way nearly all things in nature strive to persevere under even the harshest burdens. My camera is my tool to illuminate this struggle of beauty amidst perpetual decay.”
See more of Rachel’s work on her website, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
See the Exhibit Another Time
Invisible Fractures can be viewed from February 3, 2017 to February 26, 2017 at the Piano Craft Gallery. The gallery is open to the public on Fridays from 6:00-8:00 PM, Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00-5:00 PM, and by appointment. This exhibition is free and open to the public.
Located at 793 Tremont Street, Boston, MA in the historic 19th century building that once housed the country’s largest piano factory, the Piano Craft Gallery is dedicated to offering thought-provoking and engaging exhibitions. You can learn more about the Gallery at their website or on Facebook.