What are we waiting for?
A tribute to Ashling Murphy, 1998-2022.
Using monoprint technique, I scrawl her name through the ink and print onto my body which is then transferred to the wall. Now she rests, dancing in Germany. Ashling Murphy, an Irish primary school teacher from Co. Offaly, Ireland, was violently attacked and murdered while jogging on 12th January 2022.
The weather while I was in KuBa had been beautiful, I arrived during a heatwave. On this Sunday when we were showcasing our work to the community, the weather had taken a small bit of a turn. The sky was grey but it was still warm and dry.
We’d moved from Merlijne’s location to mine and as I’m preparing my ink, my body, the rain starts to pour. The studio where I was performing has no doors, it’s an open box in the middle of a field of grass, so the rain was everywhere.
A few minutes later, covered in ink, I’m standing back, finished with my work and the rain stops.
We laughed about it later saying I really had brought the Irish weather with me, but then we thought maybe it was just Ashling saying hello.
Prior to this work, I had begun to explore the field of Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) and its impact on our society and the violence epidemic we are currently living through. DTD, while acknowledged by members of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, failed to make its way into the DSM-V, being seen as “clinical intuition” despite evidence presented from a number of DSM-V field trials with many person-based research assessments having been investigated since the 1970s.
When we can acknowledge that traumatised children need specific care and treatment and not premature diagnoses and medication prescriptions, will we begin to finally treat this cycle of violence and abuse? It is understandable to condemn such questions, as it pertains to a sense of justification. But in order to heal as a society, we cannot continue to point fingers in blame, we must begin to look for solutions. We must begin to look at preventative measures for as it stands, punishment and consequences have evidently had no effect.
'Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.'
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
The title “What are we waiting for?” suggests that while new laws have been put in place since this tragedy, still we are faced with overwhelming cases of violence against women. It poses the question as to whether it’s time we take a newer, alternative approach and to remind us that it is within our power to make a change.
