This artwork occupies a difficult space: the distinction between accountability and incarceration.

INTiMATE explores the uneasy relationship between intimacy, violence, and accountability. Borrowing the color and typography of a prison jumpsuit, the work merges the words INTIMATE and INMATE, not as an endorsement of incarceration, but as an examination of consequence. The piece emerged from my struggle to reconcile a belief in alternatives to punishment with the reality that violence against women is too often met with impunity. It asks what accountability looks like when harm is acknowledged by neither the perpetrator nor the systems meant to address it.

A visual collision between the words INTIMATE and INMATE examines the many forms of imprisonment created by violence and coercive control. While accountability is one thread within the piece, it also reflects the reality that victims themselves are often confined—by fear, intimidation, isolation, and the ongoing consequences of another person's choices. The work asks who is imprisoned, by whom, and what genuine accountability might look like.

For the victim: fear, surveillance, isolation, threats, intimidation, the constant calculation of risk ALL become a cell. The piece also reflects a dilemma many survivors face. One can oppose mass incarceration, recognize the failures and inequities of the prison system, and still believe that violence against women requires meaningful consequences. Those positions are not contradictory.

"What Fuels Domestic Violence? Part 2: Misogyny - In the second part of our series, we examine how sexism and misogyny play­ a part in the continuation of domestic violence."

"What Is Misogyny?

"While sexism is discrimination or prejudice against one sex, or a gender stereotyping, misogyny is more severe by definition—a contempt or hatred of women that often manifests itself via social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, disenfranchisement of women, violence against women and sexual objectification. "

"Misogyny Fuels Violence Against Women. Should It Be a Hate Crime?"

“Men who kill women do not suddenly kill women, they work up to killing women.”

— Caroline Criado Perez, author of “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men”