www.thesirenscollective.com

I am the founder of The Sirens Collective. Together with my co-founder Kim Hoss, I founded this collective because we want to bring great change. We started out as a pair and now have four more volunteers working with us. What unites us is the conviction that the silence about sexualized violence must be broken and that our social view must be sharpened for the absurdity of the normality of sexualized assaults.

The heart of our collective is a digital archive – a collectively growing digital sculpture that offers those affected a safe space to share their memories. My aim is to make the dark figure visible and to shine the spotlight on all situations that allow abuse. This is not just about the major offenses, but also about the minor abuses that often remain invisible. We encourage people to recognize, understand and set new boundaries.

Our platform is the first safe place where you can often express for the first time that something is wrong. There are no likes, no sharing, no comments, no consequences. We are the bridge to the numerous fantastic aid organizations out there. But they need you to allow yourself alone that you might need the help.

We are not social workers or lawyers – we are artists. We work in waves; it’s not about delivering perfect solutions, but about having the courage to make a collective start. Creating empathy.

To embody the siren, we have to explore things that are taboo. The siren laughs at conventions and constraints. It eats up rules and norms. We dig deep, to a place where we have to learn lessons and summon courage to find our way back to dry land. I explore places that hurt to tell, that hurt to listen and that hurt to change.

We are loud, we are many, we are sirens.

@thesirenscollective