Drama, Trauma, Abuse (Self Portrait)

 

In this work, I explore the intersections of drama, trauma, and abuse through the ancient tale of the three wise monkeys — a symbol that has long signified the moral code of ignoring evil.

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Traditionally interpreted as a call to personal virtue, I use this gesture to interrogate how silence, blindness, and deafness can become mechanisms of survival — or complicity in the face of pain.

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Each monkey becomes a metaphor...

The one who sees no evil turns away not out of denial, but because the sights of abuse are too hard to bear — a visual amnesia born from trauma.

The one who hears no evil has trained themselves to drown out the screaming, not because they cannot hear, but because listening means reliving.
The one who speaks no evil is silenced, not out of virtue, but out of fear of retaliation, shame, and dismissal.

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This piece is rooted in personal and collective memory. The quiet spaces in families, institutions, and societies where abuse is known, but not named. It is about the roles we play, the performances we give, and the stories we edit to survive. The "wise" monkeys, once passive icons of moral restraint, are here as tragic figures caught in trauma's aftermath.

In reframing these symbols, I invite viewers to question what is preserved through silence and what is lost. This is not a call to judgment; rather, it is a meditation on how trauma distorts our senses, and how healing might begin not by turning away, but by finally seeing, hearing, and speaking what has long been hidden.

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Let this work be an act of witnessing.