Jonna Bo Lammers

How mainstream news visualises sexual violence in a way that is wrong, harmful, and stupid—and why I’m launching a counter-visual attack with imagery that is empathetic, nuanced, and real.

The media repeats the same images. Survivors of sexual assault are shown in a POV* way (as if we are the assaulter). These depictions almost never show the harasser, but instead show the survivors resisting (which enforces victim blaming), rarely capturing the full reality of assault.

These visuals are so ingrained that even I didn’t recognise my own sexual assault as assault. I want to break these patterns by creating new imagery that challenges harmful stereotypes and gives survivors something to which they can actually relate. Through my illustrations, I want to challenge these oversimplified, damaging representations with ones that reflect the complexity of sexual violence. This degree project is both a critique and a creative response—working towards a new visual language for sexual violence.

“When we change the way we see, the things we see also change”, Catherine McCormack

*Point of view