Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (E.M.D.R.) is a type of therapy that targets traumatic memories, and helps you reprocess them using bilateral stimulation. This can be tapping either side of your body or following an object with your eyes left to right as the therapist guides you.

I decided to engage in this process after months of psychosomatic back pain brought on by distress related to the events in Palestine, which triggered my own trauma as I saw victims being blamed for their own pain. I had engaged in talk therapy for over a decade, but I knew there was something deeper I needed to address and had to seek alternative methods. I was referred to an expert and embarked on an 8-month journey of facing the past – wading into the dark waters of my own trauma, and the memories that lay within them.

Black liquid has been a recurring motif in my work, originally a reference to possession films and haunted houses in which the liquid of the pipework or the body turns black to indicate malignancy, sickness, or a curse. In my practice it has become a representation of trauma, one that escapes the body regardless of attempts to conceal it, or swallows the body as one approaches acceptance. Inspired greatly by the imagery and color palette of Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin,” I chose to expand on this motif for E.M.D.R. – what if I finally disturb the surface of this black liquid, what if I finally dive in? What will I find within my own past, and what do I risk to find a degree of peace with what has happened?

You see my body in various states – in luminous viridian in the void, in confrontation with unknown entities in the blackness, as a frightening and pathetic creature long lost to the dark, and as a grown woman taking the position of a child once again. Color is utilized to show varying degrees of disassociation, monochrome greens and blues showing moments in the depths of the process and naturalistic flesh as I come back to reality. The line between sinister sides and victimized bodies is blurred in this show – where before the sides of the self were distinct in my work, E.M.D.R. brings them closer together.

I aimed to show my journey here, for you – the experience of a recovered memory, the fear of the past, the potential of something going wrong, how it feels to look at yourself as a child and realize you blame them for something that wasn’t their fault. The fear and excitement of peeling back the layers and finding what truly disturbs you, what keeps you planted in the past, but also what lies you tell yourself that you can now imbue with truth. And, through the void of trauma and shame, moments of peace and clarity that lead to acceptance.

Lydia Pettit