"Restorative"
Artist
Statement
Participating in this project reorganized my heart. From the moment I was handed Stan’s Story, I experienced a deep sense of gratitude and responsibility. The courage, the vulnerability, the laugh-out-loud humour moved me into deeper ways of thinking, feeling, and creating.
Stan shared how he grew to love a son-in-law many of us would have dismissed and villainized. In a straightforward and practical way, he chose relationship, belonging, and care over fear, pain, and prejudice. He demonstrated that healing happens when we choose love over hate, and by sharing his story, Stan invited me to do the same.
I am an author. I write novels and typically take thousands of words to explore social themes such as restorative justice. As I approached my creative response to Stan’s Story, I considered the ethics of storytelling and the intersectional connections between me and Stan, a person I’d never met. Except, I felt as if I had met him. Reading and stewarding his story felt as if he’d invited me to the campfire, where I considered how to capture, articulate, and honour both of our experiences participating in this research.
I quickly realized that it wasn’t only a two-week deadline that would shape my writing process for my response, but also the spirit of collaboration necessary for true restorative action. “Restorative” is a found poem, co-created over time and space between me and Stan. Tucked in the lines of the narrative summary he gifted me, I searched for possibility. Phrases such as “hole-in-the-wall,” “open eyes,” and “trying to do better” jumped off the page. I highlighted the words that reflected my experience engaging with this project, then re-typed the poem, printed it on cardstock, and created a visual to accompany the text. The call-and-response format suggests a conversation; the linocut fire, printed in red ink, evokes a sense of warmth and community.
While the shape of this poem reveals something of my experience participating in this project, the words and wisdom belong to Stan. Humour is healing. Storytelling is healing. Let’s focus on the healing, tell the stories, and write new systems of justice into existence. Together.
Thank you, Stan.
Analysis
Victoria took a conversational call-and-response approach to her piece, that speaks to her dedication to ethics in storytelling. By speaking with Stan instead of for him, Vaandering (2013) reminds us of the need to work with people and not for or to them when it comes to justice. Such an approach extends agency and autonomy to the participants who shared their stories, and I felt it was a beautiful way to honour Stan’s voice with integrity and dignity – major elements typically missing from relational victim experiences. In order to do this sort of work, a huge amount of empathy, and in her own words “gratitude and responsibility” is required. I was impressed with the way each artist informed their work with such an ethic of care.
Victoria highlights key terms for her: “hole-in-the-wall”, “open eyes”, and “trying to do better”. While our first two artists seemed to focus on weight and transition, Victoria tells a tale of hope and healing, as she suggests, “…I searched for possibility”. In relation to positive victimology (e.g., Ronel, 2015b; Toren, 2015) wherein victims should be presented with positive experiences to address the negative ones, Stan truly seems to embody ideas around healing and reintegration. Victoria showcases Stan’s dedication to his family and healing as a daily practice. Drawing on the firepit, the talking piece, open spaces, and working side-by-side, Stan speaks to unconditional love through acceptance.
Despite Stan having not known the incarcerated version of his son-in-law, there does seem to be a before and after juxtaposition in his story too. In speaking to the ways that his son-in-law has changed him (learning patience and how to meet conflict head on with kindness), Stan suggests he is a better man for having Chad in his life. Victoria also entered a relationship with Stan. In discussing her approach to creating the art piece she discusses “the spirit of collaboration necessary for true restorative action” as part of that process. As Stan and Chad worked to build a reciprocal relationship, Victoria worked with Stan’s words to collaborate and incite healing through empathetic practices. In the vein of the relational and experimental pedagogy of “Introduction to Restorative Justice” at Simon Fraser University, I find it particularly salient that not only did Victoria describe Stan’s experience as she imagined it to be, she did it utilizing his own words. In mentioning the “intersections that live between us” she recognizes herself in Stan. But she also allowed him to “reorganize” her heart, accentuating the depth of her empathy in its ability to impact others and herself. She further brings this point home when she describes the piece as “…co-created over time and space between me and Stan”, again speaking to collaboration as essential to healing.
There is also a theme of choice within Victoria’s piece, similar to Kyla and Shar. However, choice in Victoria’s narrative is bound within autonomy rather than beyond one’s control. She states, “…he chose relationship, belonging, and care over fear, pain, and prejudice. He demonstrated that healing happens when we choose love over hate…”. She speaks to the dichotomies that exist around relational victims (love/fear, belonging/prejudice, etc.) and points out that Stan engages in relationships and healing as a choice. Kristine spoke to this when she said forgiveness is an everyday decision. Jeff too suggested healing to be a “living practice” and one that must be chosen.
Healing in Stan’s story is laced with courage, vulnerability, and humour. Tongue in cheek statements like “I know a guy” allow relational victims to acknowledge the gravity of the situation while also allowing space for softness and grace. Abby describes the release that came with laughing together after their first fight post-incarceration. The use of humour in healthcare settings where folks are critically or terminally ill has been documented (see for example: Gibson, 1994; Simons, 2015) and lends to the discussion at hand. The use of humour in healthcare settings may serve as a coping mechanism, helping people manage stress, grief, and emotionally intense situations. Similarly, for relational victims, humour can act as a way to process complex emotions such as guilt or shame. Humour provides emotional distance, allows for moments of relief, and helps maintain a sense of humanity when facing difficult realities. Humour might also act as a turning point, drawing on Rossner’s (2013) interaction ritual theory. In this context, a turning point refers to an interactional moment in which emotional tension is disrupted, the atmosphere lightens, and a micro-level movement toward social solidarity becomes possible. These moments are relational repair in action.
When moments of relational repair happen repeatedly, relational victims experience integrated and on-going healing. Claudia speaks of integrated healing, Kristine mentions healing being an everyday decision, Stan discusses healing as a daily ritual, Jackie expresses harm and healing to be intergenerational, Jeff highlights healing as a living practice and one to be done in community, and Abby references communal and relational healing. While traditional private therapies may be effective, based on the experience of these relational victims, community is where true healing occurs. Morrison (2006) said shame happens in the disconnect, and if that is true, then healing most effectively happens in re-connection. As Kyla demonstrated in her dance, we find alienation in isolation, and as Victoria highlighted, “Humour is healing. Storytelling is healing” and humour and storytelling typically happen and are most effective when two or more people come together, in community.