Gibberish is the gap between truth and the systems used to hide it.
A legal document revisited after autonomy is regained.
This artwork is derived from an actual handwritten document created during Family Court proceedings through coercion and litigation abuse. The document was drafted during a suggested recess and pertains to civil matters.
This document was not created to reveal the truth or to protect me. Its purpose was to regulate speech and demand silence. In doing so, it redirected attention away from the violence, coercive control, intimidation, threats, and the broader pattern of behavior that had brought me into the legal system. A handwritten agreement about what I could not bring into the light came to occupy more attention than the conduct that made protection necessary in the first place, keeping truth in the dark.
The document represents more than a single moment in court. It reflects how coercive control can extend beyond an intimate relationship and continue through legal processes. When an abuser succeeds in shifting attention away from abusive conduct and toward the survivor's response, the legal process itself can become another instrument of coercion. The focus shifts from accountability for violence to scrutiny of the survivor.
This is the gap the artwork examines.
The document became evidence of how truth can be displaced rather than confronted. It illustrates how allegations, litigation, and disputes over speech can overshadow patterns of coercion and violence. The document became larger than the conversation about the violence and coercive control that created it. The paper occupied a space disproportionate to its actual importance, while the realities that produced it receded into the background. This is how coercive control can continue through institutions—not by changing the past, but by changing what receives attention.
The handwritten text is rendered difficult to read while remaining recognizable as writing. Viewers instinctively search for meaning within marks that clearly communicate something, yet resist comprehension. This mirrors the experience of navigating coercive control and litigation abuse, where procedure, narrative manipulation, and institutional authority can become instruments through which truth is delayed, displaced, or obscured. The tactics of coercive control succeed by redirecting attention away from conduct and toward the survivor's response, reversing narratives, and distorting reality.
The document no longer functions as a legal instrument. It has been removed from the context in which it was created and transformed into an artifact for examination. Isolated, it becomes evidence—not of justice—but of how coercion can move through legal processes, conceal harm, manipulate perception, and contribute to the continued erosion of autonomy.
By transforming this document into an artwork, I reclaim authorship over something that once functioned as a tool of restriction. What sought to define the limits of my speech now becomes the means through which I speak. The document no longer possesses authority over me. It becomes material for examination, reflection, and truth-telling.
Gibberish is not about a single legal document. It is about the distance that can emerge between lived reality and the systems that claim to represent it. It asks what happens when institutional processes become more important than the truths they were intended to examine. This artwork flips the script, reducing the document to gibberish and transcending both the system that produced it and the coercive control that demanded it.
The document no longer belongs to the court. It belongs to the artwork, where it can be seen rather than obeyed.
A legal document revisited after autonomy is regained.
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