Artist and human rights activist Hannah Rose Thomas has travelled the world leading trauma-healing art workshops with women affected by war. Her debut art book Tears of Gold presents her portraits of girls in conflict zones who’ve survived war and sexual violence. Her moving portraits have been acknowledged by King Charles III, who wrote the foreword to the book.
Christian Today spoke along with her on International Women’s Day on the Tears of Gold exhibition in London to listen to about her motivation behind the book, the impact her art workshops have had on victims of violence and conflict, and the way her faith has been encouraged through her work.
What spurred you on to provide Tears of Gold?
When I lived in Jordan as an Arabic student in 2014, I had a possibility to organise art projects with Syrian refugees for the UN Refugee Agency – an experience which opened my eyes to the magnitude of the refugee crisis confronting our world today.
I started to color the portraits of a number of the refugees I had met, to indicate the people behind the worldwide crisis, whose personal stories are otherwise often shrouded by statistics. My experience in Jordan also opened my eyes to the healing power of the humanities and its potential as a tool for advocacy. I’m aware that what I actually have been involved with up to now is but a glimpse of the potential healing and restorative power of the humanities as a catalyst for change.
Please share a bit in regards to the work you probably did with Open Doors in Nigeria.
Through the support of Open Doors, I had the privilege of facilitating trauma-healing art workshops. In northern Nigeria. I taught the ladies find out how to paint their self-portraits as a strategy to share their stories. Many of the ladies selected to color themselves with glistening tears of gold: this inspired the title of the book. One young women Aisha, who had suffered rape by the hands of Fulani militants, said that the gold tears symbolised God bestowing on her a crown of beauty as an alternative of ashes; the oil of joy as an alternative of mourning (Isaiah 61:3).
What responses have you ever needed to your trauma-healing art workshops?
The hope was that these art projects would create an area that honours the experience and the ladies’s stories, and for all and sundry to feel seen and heard. This is particularly vital given the stigma, shame and silence surrounding issues reminiscent of sexual violence. The arts can assist by giving a recent type of communication to handle the silence and unspeakable pain. Feelings are communicated through drawing and painting that perhaps can’t be expressed through words.
Is there a survivor’s story that has stuck with you?
In northern Nigeria, one woman who took part within the art workshop, called Charity, had been kidnapped by Boko Haram and held captive for 3 years. [After being freed by the Nigerian military] Charity said, “I can recount three different times that I used to be beaten by my husband because I got here back with a toddler. I actually have told him ‘I have not done it out of my very own will. I used to be forced and there was nothing I could do.”
She faces each day rejection and isolation within the Internally Displaced Persons camp in northern Nigeria as a result of the stigma surrounding sexual violence. On our last day together for the art project Charity said, “I’m so blissful. I actually have never held a pencil in my life before, and that is the primary time I actually have been able to write down my name and even to attract my face!”
What do you think that the Church can do to support women in conflict zones?
Conflict leaves many wounds, but perhaps essentially the most significant of all is the invisible stigma that so many survivors of sexual violence face. The perceived association of survivors and their children born of war-time rape with the enemy compounds the pain, shame, isolation and trauma. I witnessed this in northern Nigeria, which was heartbreaking to see. The Church can do more to support, welcome, honour and value women who’ve endured conflict-related sexual violence. This will help to counteract the stigma and shame and thereby enable healing throughout the communities who’ve suffered such violence.
What is the method behind your paintings? Do you meet with the ladies beforehand to have a discussion?
The way I like to work essentially the most is spending time with the ladies doing the art workshops, in Iraq and northern Nigeria. It was only through that point that the girl would share their stories in the event that they desired to. It was after that point of sharing their stories I’d then ask in the event that they were still blissful to be painted. I’d take photos of them after they might share their stories to color from and I did these paintings after I returned home. I exploit very time consuming early renaissance painting methods and find it is a type of prayer using these painting techniques. It’s a time where I’m desirous about each of the ladies and their stories while I paint and I hold them in my heart and pray for them while I paint.
As you were painting the ladies, what went through your mind?
Often tears would come to my eyes as I remembered their stories and what they have been through, but additionally the knowledge of the situation they were still in. I used to be returning home to safety but they were in refugee camps in northern Nigeria and Iraqi Kurdistan and these other contexts. The memory of every woman and their stories was so vivid in my mind. They are only emblazoned in my heart and my memory. I feel of the paintings as being a type of lament and grief for these women.
How has your faith been encouraged through the work that you just do?
I actually have been modified in so some ways by these women that I actually have met. I feel prefer it truly has been the best privilege to satisfy them and to have been entrusted to share their stories and portraits and in addition their extraordinary faith as well. In northern Nigeria the ladies I worked with through Open Doors got here from Christian backgrounds they usually had such faith in God’s goodness. They showed such kindness, grace and joy, it was infectious. I got here away remembering what Jesus says, that the primary shall be last and the last shall be first into heaven. I feel that these women desired to be painted in a way that just about seemed regal. They could also be forgotten on earth or they may not be well-known on earth, but despite what they’ve suffered they shall be essentially the most honoured women in heaven. That was something I desired to capture through these paintings.
What do you hope people will gain from the book?
Through my portrait paintings I seek to convey that every of us are created within the image of God and equally helpful in His eyes, no matter race, religion or gender. The arts affirm the language of empathy – they will provide us with a language for mediating the broken relational and cultural divides.
