Incest Awareness Project

“As media coordinator of this project I chose a long term strategy to keep the news events and press articles active for a year. The sensitive subject matter required an educational approach. The press releases were sent out over time to build public interest in a subject no one wanted to know about. They centered around the art exhibit that opened in October although the project started in May. The publicity generated numerous press articles, TV appearances and public service announcements.”

— Leslie Labowitz, 1979

Awareness Campaign

Mayor Tom Bradley declared the month of October 1979 "Children's Defense Month."

The Crime Nobody Talks About, by Louise Armstrong, Woman's Day Magazine, March 1, 1978.

ARTIST PARTICIPATION
COMMUNITY VIDEO PROJECT

Equal Time in Equal Space

Directed by Nancy Angelo, 1979

Equal Time In Equal Space is designed as a multiple-system video installation and interactive experience. It is the first public presentation about “incest” created by women about women. By creating images of women that are self-generated and multi-dimensional this production is not about victims but about women having power over their lives. It goes beyond looking at the problem from a distance, as an observer, as if it didn’t happen or couldn’t to you or someone in your family.

Six video monitors are set up in a circular pattern with six audience members sitting between each one. Each monitor carries the image and voice of a different woman. The rules of a consciousness-raising session structure the presentation. What you see is a 10 week facilitated process in which all cast and crew explored their personal relationship to incest. Out of these sessions, each woman chose what she wanted to share in the video segment.

In Equal Time In Equal Space a chain of communication begins that extends to its audience. After viewing the tapes the audience is facilitated in a discussion similar to that seen on the video.

Outline of Equal Time in Equal Space Presentation by participant.

Exhibit Curated by
PAULA LUMBARD + LESLIE BELT

Bedtime Stories

Art Exhibit at the Woman's Building, October, 1979

The art exhibition by adult women and teenage incest survivors examining the secrecy, the pain, and the victimization of their incest childhoods from the perspective of their own healing process. These women know that “stopping the silence about incest stops incest.”

The installation is designed to help the viewer move through the exhibition and gain an understanding of the incest dynamic as it exists through a child victim’s reality. A child that experiences incest must often live a separate reality in the day and another more frightening one at night. This dual reality is graphically designed by the two toned walls.

The walls were split horizontally, the bottom half painted yellow, the top half painted black. Along the border where the colors met, artist Dyana Silberstein ran an endless row of color Xeroxed paper dolls bearing her own face in expressions of anger, fear, confusion, and grief.

One television news producer who came to tape a segment on the exhibit broke down in the taping as the memory of her own molestation came flooding back. Hundreds of people called the hotline and were referred to social services, low cost counseling, and support groups. Mayor Tom Bradley declared the month of October 1979 “Children’s Defense Month.”