The Walls of Silence: A Survivor's Museum

About 35 years ago, I got the idea of building a museum to commemorate and honor women who are victims of rape. I was inspired at the time by the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. I eventually published "The Women's Rape Museum" as a blog on this site.

Because of this blog, two architecture students from the University of San Carlos in the Phillippines reached out to me, asking me to be a consultant on their thesis project, which was to design a museum for survivors of sexual violence. The two students were Allen Celestino and Fairyssa Biana Canama... and they did an incredible job with their project, titled "Walls of Silence: A Survivor's Museum." It was designed for a site in Cebu City, but it could and should serve as a model for similar museums in any city.

Celestino and Canama studied a range of Holocaust and war memorial museums, and came up with a design that would take visitors on a healing journey through the different stage of assimilating the trauma of rape. To aid in the presentation of their thesis, they made a beautiful short video that takes the viewer on a graphic tourof the various passages and chambers of this architectural journey.

Their video journey is only 3.5 minutes long... and well worth the viewing! They have broken down the chaotic and inchoate process of healing from post-rape trauma, helping the victim access an experience that too often is an internal and unassimilated secret.

The genius of their project is that this is also a healing and integrating experience for the friends and families of survivors, who often have no idea what their loved one is going through. In this museum experience, they can literally accompany them through these externalized stages, offering enormous opportunity for dialogue and empathy.

For those who are interested in the process behind their choices, their half-hour thesis presentation is fascinating and also available online. (It includes the shorter video of the museum tour.) Both Celestino and Canama come out as survivors in their video, and their design process reflects their constant engagement with their own experiences.

I encourage survivors and those who love us to take the short tour of Walls of Silence, and then the longer tour of the thesis presentation. I encourage all of us begin to think more deeply about the needs of survivors in our culture and ways to bring this tangible, visible proof of caring to our communities.

Before the visitor begins the descent into the survivor's journey, they pass through the exhibit of Rape Myths, to clear their thinking of popular and oppressive misconceptions.

The post-trauma journey begins...

The Descent to Darkness

This is the Path of the Silenced.

In the early stages of recovery, the survivor often masks their pain and adopts an attitude of silence about their experience.

The Dome of Inner Thoughts... again, giving voice to the shame and self-doubt.

Entering the Hall of Judgement

In the Hall of Judgement

The Debriefing Room... for processing these earlier passages.

The Maze of Decisions as the trauma begins to become unfrozen.

In the Hall of Empowerment, the visitor has an opportunity to ritually dispose of artifacts associated with the trauma.

Leaving the fire and entering the second part of the Hall of Empowerment

Giant statues of healed survivors in the Hall of Empowerment

2 Comments

Fairyssa - 5 years ago

Thank you so much Carolyn! This is amazing!

Phoebe - 5 years ago

This is amazing Carolyn. Thanks for posting this. This experience of the abuse is horrific. But the life long journey of survivors dealing with PTSD and other issues from the abuse is often unknown and certainly minimized way too often. Thank you Fairyssa and Allen!