I expected the aftermath of a traumatic event to be loud. I expected a crash of emotion and anger to swarm around me until I would explode. But what hit me was silence. A quiet and eeriness that suffocated.

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No loud screaming. No explosive rage. No buzzing of the world around me. Just a stillness that seeped to my bones.

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The world kept moving, indifferent and unhurried. In that stillness, the mundane became something else entirely. Poignant everyday moments burned into my memory, carried as small scars too precise to forget.

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A cup of tea is no longer just a cup of tea. It is a lifeline that brought me down to earth when the confusion of "Did that really just happen?" hit. A paper bag is no longer just a bag but a container for the "Will I or won't I?" and the "Will they believe me?" and the "Am I strong enough?". Everyday mundane acts all of a sudden carried the weight of how to pick up the pieces of being stripped bare. Small, forgotten things transformed into quiet monuments of survival.

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This project reflects the mundane and the surreal existence of my experience after trauma. It lives in the space between what happened and what comes after, the ordinary and the surreal existing side by side, unbothered by the contradiction. The uncomfortable quiet. The feeling of stillness that embraced me.

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It does not scream. It does not need to.

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It simply bears witness.