DONNA BASSIN
Photo-based artist, filmmaker, trauma psychologist, professor, and published author
MY OWN WITNESS:RUPTURE AND REPAIR
HÉLDER CHAMBEL
English Text
Being who we are can be traumatic, especially in disorganizing cultures. Donna Bassin, through her portraits, through the voice of those portrayed, through the tears in the photographs and the ingenious "kintsugi" repair, makes us experience the trauma of another and our own wounds. To experience is to integrate, to be aware of the possible beauty, of which there is a lot in Donna's photographs. Visible trauma, in our consciousness, as in these photographs is mental health. Donna's movements of empathy and willingness to be a witness are therapeutic for us,
who travel to the worlds of trauma experience, and for those portrayed, who see their trauma recognized, but also their subjectivity valued, accepted, thus as it is, without prior definition, without labels, whatever type they may be, because each one of us is unique, and deserves to be discovered in this singularity. This is metal health, because it gives meaning to life
Hélder Chambel
Clinical Psychologist - Psychotherapist
MIRA FORUM
Porto
Exhibition
27th April 2024
LEAVE NO SOLDIER
Leave No Soldier is a very personal project for Director Donna Bassin, Ph.D., an artist and clinical psychologist. Her journey began when she volunteered to help families in New York City accept and mourn the tragic events of 9/11. She met veterans, at that time, in a professional quest to understand mourning after collective trauma, and quickly became impressed with their ability to transform anger and revenge into social activism and community care. A child of the baby boom generation that failed to distinguish war from veterans, Bassin soon realized that the complex emotions and struggles of veterans returning home were completely different from war itself. She decided to explore the roots of their experiential wisdom, and her persistence and sensitivity to the issues surrounding veterans allowed her to befriend their close-knit community. Since then, she has worked hard to bring those issues to light.