TOW #28 - Rotatio by Shannon Mackenzie

               In 2015, director Ian McClerin made a short film that followed Shannon Mackenzie’s artwork that depicted through lines and words the story of her rape. At first glance the finished piece looks like a vast mandala of tally marks that fit together to make a circle. But at a closer look one can see the short phrases sporadically placed between the tally marks. Together these short phrases make up Mackenzie’s story of being raped. Mackenzie first began doing drawing exercises after her assault as way to alleviate her stress and anxiety. The simple action of creating tick marks because a common theme in her drawings, each tick representing the number of days she had survived after the assault.

                For 33 hours, Mackenzie created mark after mark, every now and then filling in the painful details of her rape. She included the rapist’s name in the piece, stating that it wasn’t an act of revenge but more an act of release and a way for her to release some of the weight put on her from the assault. At the end of the preview, Mackenzie painted over the outcome of her work with white paint, marking the piece’s conclusion with a blank canvas, and essentially starting a new beginning for herself.

                Mackenzie’s main purpose in creating the piece was to share her story and to express her pain. Her completion of the piece by painting it over with white demonstrates how the whole process helped her to cope with her rape. Then her second purpose was to show other rape victims that it was possible to survive and live after you were raped.