The Traumatic Surreal

Morgan M Page is a writer, artist, and historian based in London, UK. She is the co-writer of the Sundance award winning feature film Framing Agnes (2022) and the book Boys Don’t Cry (2022).

As a historian, she has appeared in several documentaries, most recently Eldorado: Everything the Nazis Hate (Netflix, 2023). Her podcast One From the Vaults brings you all of the dirt, gossip, and glamour from trans history, and she served as executive producer for Harsh Reality: the Miriam Rivera Story (Wondery, 2022). Her artwork has been shown in the Brooklyn Museum, MOCA Taipei, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

In 1971, twirling across the stages and parks of San Francisco were the Cockettes – the avant-garde ‘weirdo drag’ troupe that launched the career of disco diva Sylvestre. “You make me feel mighty real, that Sylvestre”. ot content to perform mere female impersonation, the Cockettes developed a psychedelic drag aesthetic with colourful makeup and glittering caftans that was more alien than human, a precursor to today’s drag landscape.

Something was in the water – probably LSD if we’re totally honest – even across the world in Germany, where Ursula made this Head Object that same year. Wrapped in furs, somewhere between woman and animal, this fierce creature is in high acid drag. Her white face is dappled like watercolour.

It reminds me of the floorshow makeup in 1975’s Rocky Horror Picture Show, or the neon-drenched New Wave vampire aliens in 1982’s Liquid Sky. I love this diva. She is like hundreds of wig heads found in every drag queen’s home, lovingly painted. I just wish someone would give her some lashes, poor thing.

Today, we might look back and say that Ursula’s interest in breaking down binaries – woman/man, human/animal – was ahead of its time. But the Cockettes remind me that these ideas were very much of their time, a period in which the children of war across the world experienced a mass disillusionment with dominant hierarchies and strict taxonomies. A time much like our own.

As you enter the gallery, the first work in front of you is a bust of a woman. The figure immediately resembles a bust of a shop-window mannequin – a nod to retail aesthetics.

This artwork is called Head Object, by the self-taught artist simply known as Ursula, who was born in Brandenburg, Germany in 1921. Ursula developed a complex, personal mythology in her work, full of highly symbolic elements and a fluid approach to gender identity.

The head, atop an elongated neck, painted bright yellow at the base, turns slightly to the audience’s left, suggesting movement and giving the sculpture an elegant pose. It evokes a sense of the 1920s and 1930s. Despite the 1971 date of the piece, the mannequin’s features suggest a different period.

The face of the mannequin is painted with exaggerated, carnivalesque makeup – bright blue eyeshadow that extends beyond the eye area, blending into the shape of the face. The jawline is highlighted in a vibrant pink, suggesting a sort of twisted, avant-garde style, as though someone has been playing with conventional makeup. The paint surface is blotchy almost as if applied by a child’s fingers.

The mannequin’s eyes are deeply unsettling – black with blue pupils, giving it an almost alien quality. The blue around the eyes reminds one of a crashing wave or perhaps tears, creating a visual connection to saltwater. The lips are painted in pink, almost as though the mouth is part of the same fantastical world.

Around the neck, a series of painted-on chains or rings create the impression of jewellery, like a choker, further emphasising the glam rock aesthetic. It is reminiscent of the 1970s, like something David Bowie might have worn during his Ziggy Stardust era. The look is bold and flamboyant, yet at the same time, it’s somewhat strange and unsettling. The sculpture provokes questions about the expectations of beauty and behaviour often placed upon women by society.

The mannequin’s short hair suggests the 1920s, an era when women first cut their hair short. Instead of hair, the head is adorned with fur, soft and textured. A stripe of fur runs down the middle of the head, possibly representing an animal tail. The fur itself is white with brown spots, like that of a ginger cat or another animal, further adding to the wild, untamed appearance of the figure. Closer observation reveals that the fur hat has a tail or possibly a dangling paw at the back, making it look like a trapper’s traditional racoon tail hat.

The piece is life-size, roughly the size of a human head but with an elongated neck that looks elegant but unnatural. On the back of the mannequin’s neck, you’ll find the signature of the artist, ‘Ursula 1971’ marking the date of creation.

This piece evokes a feeling of carnivalesque extravagance – almost like a Venetian masked ball. The exaggerated features and animal-like fur suggest something ceremonial, a trophy perhaps, as though this figure is both art and an offering of sorts. It looks like a huntsman or a mythical character.

The figure draws you in, making you reflect on beauty, identity and the line between the human and the animal.

The Sun up above and a molten core down below. The idea of a layered world long predates contemporary scientific knowledge about the layers of the Earth. You can find it almost everywhere, though cultures differ on which direction we think is best.

Christianity – like other solar monotheistic cults from the Egyptian Ra to Roman-Persian Mithras – looks skyward, toward the heavens as the goal and abode of the divine. In doing so, everything down below is seen as inferior, even threatening. The magma beneath the surface of the Earth is the fire of Hell, itself famously described as many-layered by Dante.

Eva Wipf’s ex-voto looks like a shrine outlining Christian cosmology – the Sun at the top stands in for Heaven, obviously; in the middle life and the worship of the Blessed Virgin is found on Earth; and down below, fallen angels battle with demons and lost souls are swallowed by dragons.

But the title, Ex-Voto suggests that this is an offering – something given over to the divine to fulfill a vow or obligation. Is she saying she no longer wants to suffer? That she longs for a path out of darkness and into light? Maybe she’s the angel, trapped in a cage fight with a many headed serpent. Hanging in front of the piece is a brass globe, and to me it suggests that this piece is simply how the world spins.

As you enter the exhibition The Traumatic Surreal, you will encounter an artwork against the wall facing you that resembles a shrine or a medieval altar. The sculpture is about six feet tall.

This work, titled Ex Voto-Schrein III, was made by Eva Wipf who was born in 1929 in Santo Ângelo do Paraiso, Brazil, to a family of Swiss missionaries. They returned to Switzerland when she was five. Her work often protests the patriarchal structures of the church and state, using found objects sourced from flea markets and antique shops to construct assemblages such as Ex Voto-Schrein III.

The sculpture is built from wooden boxes, which seem to be repurposed or found items, perhaps taken from various pieces of furniture, then stacked into four layers, The colours are striking, with reds towards bottom of the stack and blues towards the top. The use of these colours might suggest a separation between ‘hell’ below and ‘heaven’ above.  The gold is used liberally throughout the piece, adding to its richness and depth.

Starting at the bottom of the piece, the first layer is housed in what looks like a drawer. Inside the drawer, there is an image of a small figure that looks as though it is taken from a medieval artwork. This is set against a bright red background, painted to resemble flames. Interestingly, this figure looks like a swaddled baby, watched over by cattle, possibly referencing the Nativity. But Wipf has placed it in the ‘hell’ section.

Above this layer, an image of a golden angel, also medieval in style, is encased within metal frames. The central section has smaller, delicate boxes with fragile hinges, each containing bits of intricate decoration. These smaller boxes give the piece a sense of fragility, with elements like cardboard and other materials that feel temporary and delicate. Inside these there are more elements taken from reproductions of paintings, such as a Queen, two people praying and a couple kissing, which is part of the famous painting The Kiss by the Viennese artist Gustav Klimt.

There is a spherical metal object in the middle of the piece, possibly representing celestial or astronomical elements. The supporting elements are made from soap dishes, but they are turned upside down and painted gold.

At the top of the piece is a circular sun-like form, possibly representing a head, the sun-like shape is framed by a wooden arc. The image of the sun is painted with rays of light, with a circular structure behind it made of wire and painted gold. The sun suggests something divine, or a sublime force of nature, not necessarily religious but powerful and unknowable.

What is in front of you is an apparently playful object – a half-pint, glass beer tankard that contrasts the familiar with the unexpected. The glass itself is filled with a bright, golden colour, giving off a warm glow, with a thick head of foam which spills over the lip of the glass.

But the most striking feature is the handle – or rather, what replaces it. In place of a glass handle, there’s the tail of a red squirrel, curled and fluffy, adding an unusual and whimsical twist.

Meret Oppenheim was a Swiss artist and writer born in Germany in 1913, and she made this work titled Squirrel in 1969. Oppenheim spent her youth in South Germany and Basel before moving to Paris in 1932 where she joined the surrealist circle around André Breton and participated in surrealist exhibitions from 1933. But Oppenheim was from a Jewish family, and in 1937, the rise of Nazism forced her to relocate to Basel, where she affiliated herself with the Swiss artist collectives Gruppe 33 and Allianz.

The combination of beer and a squirrel tail might feel odd, even comical. It might remind you of earlier surrealist works, like Lobster Telephone by Salvador Dali, mixing two incongruous ideas into one object. But the piece also references German culture from the 1960s, where masculinity and femininity were often starkly contrasted – fur, typically considered feminine, is here used in a bold, masculine context alongside beer, a drink traditionally associated with masculinity.

There are cracks in the glass that add an element of discomfort to the otherwise playful object. The tail of the squirrel, while cute and fluffy, might evoke some mixed feelings – it’s both adorable and somewhat unsettling, given that it’s the real tail of a squirrel. The object raises questions about the intersection of consumption and animal imagery, creating a tension between the playful and the grotesque.

While the squirrel’s tail is presented, the rest of the body is absent, leaving you with only the tail, which functions as the handle. The absence of the squirrel’s body adds to the abstraction. It’s displayed opposite a sculpture of a black dog across the gallery space, as if the dog is about to pounce on the squirrel’s tail. Yet, the overall effect is more cutesy than violent, despite the cracked glass and the real squirrel’s tail.

Listen to the conversation between Dr. Clare O’Dowd and Professor Patricia Allmer, curators of The Traumatic Surreal, to learn more about this piece.

(C) I love the tail.
(P) I love the tail.
(C) It’s very beautiful. I love this work
(P) Well, here we’ve got an absolutely magnificent artwork, so it’s Meret Oppenheim, Squirrel.
(C) She is super important, isn’t she, Meret Oppenheim?
(P) She was associated very closely with the surrealist group. She is best known for her furry teacup but I think that she has been, and she acknowledges that as well, always been reduced to that one piece.
(C) Yeah, so what have we got here then? The English translation of the title is Squirrel.
(P) Eichhörnchen.
(C) It’s such a cute word and it’s a really cute object. I’m not sure I like calling artworks cute but this one genuinely is. It’s a half pint beer glass with a squirrel’s tail for a handle. They’re two completely unexpected objects joined together.
(P) Which is very surrealist. But if you look a little bit longer then suddenly what you see is a severed squirrel’s tail, you’ve got the connotations of masculinity with this beer glass which is overflowing.
(C) So, are we reading the squirrel’s tail, the fur, as feminine in this instance?
(P) We can, but I wouldn’t, again I wouldn’t pin it down to just one reading.
(C) She made so much. She was a painter, a sculptor, she was brilliant. And she made some incredible sculpture that rarely gets shown, because she’s just known for one thing and it’s very reductive. So hopefully we’re showing a different side of her in this exhibition.

Shoes speak to the paths we walk through the world. Our destinies. My elders taught me that it’s taboo to wear someone else’s shoes – in doing so, you might steal someone’s good destiny, or pick up someone’s problems. Shoes are an intimate symbol of life.

Many years ago, I was in Detroit visiting the Heidelberg Project, a growing art installation swallowing up several city blocks of abandoned houses. In the centre of the houses, there is a small park, and lining the sidewalk around this park were an unbroken chain of vintage shoes from the 1950s. These shoes represent all of the people who left during the infamous white flight from the city, the very cause of the neighbourhood’s abandonment.

On the other side of the world, in Auschwitz, mountains of shoes are held on display behind glass and visited by mourners and tourists. These thousands of shoes stand in for the more than one million children, women, men, and perhaps others who were murdered there during the Holocaust.

Birgit Jurgenssen’s shoe here looks like it is barnacled, but I’m told it may actually have been breaded and baked. Hanging out of the mouth at the front, a piece of bacon. When I look at it, I think about the dead. I’m told Jurgenssen found out that her own father had been a Nazi, and knowing this, I cannot see anything but that terrible mountain of shoes at Auschwitz.

Housed together, a display of four unusual shoes. They are placed on raised circular plinths, as though they’re in a shop window.

They were made by the artist Birgit Jürgenssen, who was born in 1949 in Vienna. Jurgenssen was an important figure of the post-war feminist avant-garde, and her work offers subtle subversions of the clichés of gender representation, social stereotyping and fetishism.

The first shoe is called Bread Shoe. It was made in 1976. This is a sturdy looking high-heeled boot which at first glance might not immediately suggest anything to do with bread. The shoe appears to have been dragged from the depths of the sea. Its surface is encrusted with what look like barnacles, giving it a very rusty appearance. The heel is leather, and the laces are black, but the body of the shoe has a crusty, rough texture, almost resembling coral.

The shoe is quite small, possibly made for a woman, and it laces all the way up to the top. There’s a crack in the front of the shoe, where the material is splitting, exposing what looks like a piece of ancient bread. It’s actually a piece of bacon, although it is now so old that it doesn’t look like bacon any more. The rest of the shoe is aged and brown, and you can see crumbs coming off the surface, as if it’s been in an oven or exposed to heat, possibly even baked onto the shoe. The shoe itself is also weathered, with the leather peeling at the edges, and rust stains mark the metal lace holes.

Inside the shoe, there’s a piece of paper wedged, like a message in a bottle. There’s a sense that this shoe has been through time, absorbing the wear and tear of age and perhaps represents something transient or decayed.

In the same case, there are two other works, each based around shoes but in different mediums. One of them is called Flyweight Shoes made in 1973. These shoes are made of a transparent white material that almost gives the impression of being weightless. The shoes have small pockets sewn into the fabric, containing flies, which are positioned in little circular compartments. The insoles of the shoes are covered in a faint floral pattern, and there are tabs at the back, suggesting they could be worn, though they seem more sculptural than functional.

The third piece is titled Untitled, sometimes referred to as Wax Shoe. It was made in 1974. This tiny artwork is incredibly small, measuring about five centimetres in length, roughly the size of a finger. Unlike the other shoes, which are life-sized, this one is much smaller in scale. The base of the sculpture is shaped like the sole of a tiny shoe, but the upper gradually takes the shape of a hand, with hair stretched across it, as though it’s being used as the strings of a harp. The dark yellow colour of the shoe resembles ear wax, and the curl of the hand looks like the tail of a scorpion. There’s also black wire around the edges, with more markings resembling the fretboard of an instrument. The hand looks as though it is reaching down to play the instrument.

It’s an eerie piece, with delicate strands of the artist’s own hair running through it, almost threatening to break upon touch. There’s a hint of violence in its form, as though it’s about to strike or act. The insect-like shape gives the piece an unsettling feeling, making it feel alive, or on the brink of action.

Looking at all these works together, there’s a sense of the sinister and the uncanny, of dark fairytales, as though each shoe holds a story of its own. The Bread Shoe, with its singular nature and decay, contrasts with the Flyweight Shoes, which seem less used, almost more like fragile objects. And then, there’s Untitled, with its tiny, insect-like hand-shape, suggesting a world that is delicate, eerie and unsettling.

The display makes you think about shoes in a way that’s both familiar and strange, as though each pair holds a mystery about where it came from, who wore it, and what it represents. There’s an unsettling quality to the sight of shoes – one lost, one displayed in pieces – that leaves you wondering about the life that’s passed through them.

The dogs of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are evolving rapidly, say researchers in an article for the New York Times. Exposed to the still burning radiation of the meltdown for decades, successive generations are developing new gene traits. “You can adopt them”, another article cheerfully announces.

Humanity’s crimes on Earth leave indelible marks on nature – whether these catastrophes are accidental or genocidal. Dobermans have been transformed by their association with Nazi atrocities. Despite being originally known for their intelligence and loyalty, their use as guard dogs by the SS have become all we can see when we encounter them in film. Cropped ears and tails are signs of human intervention, an attempt to create the perfect canine warriors – tough, unfeeling, aggressive to all but their master. A perfect example of the masculinist impulse of fascism.

But this perfection has a cost. Growths of toxic fertilizer burst forth from this dog’s body in Birgit Jurgenssen’s Untitled (Dog) from 1972, like egg sacks, zombie parasites, or fungi. A nightmare dog, like the demon dogs of Resident Evil. The militarization of dogs – man’s supposed best friend – is a chilling reminder of the violence radiating beneath the thin topsoil of our lives.

In the second room of the galleries, there is a small but striking sculpture. It’s a black dog, which resembles a Doberman but it’s the size of a Chihuahua. It is very obviously a male dog. It’s made of ceramic but its matt surface and spray-painted colouring make it look more like a mass-produced plastic object.

Birgit Jürgenssen made this work in 1972, and its title is Untitled (Dog). Jürgenssen was born in 1949 in Vienna, and she studied at the city’s University of Applied Arts, where she later lectured. Her sculptures are often domestic in both theme and scale, with found and familiar household objects being arranged to produce unsettling effects.

This dog-like form is anything but cute. Its features are intense, focused, even unsettling. The body is small, almost ornamental in scale, yet the details and its air of ‘standing to attention’ give it a sense of strength and danger. The dog looks as though it has been in a fierce battle – its ears are torn, and on one side, you can see the bone beneath the flesh. Its right leg has an eerie, almost clinical look, as if it’s been wrapped in splints or bandages.

What makes this piece truly striking is the dog’s wounds – intestines seem to spill from the back, particularly on the right side. There are holes and broken patches along its flank, some of which have been glued back together. These areas have been filled with a material that resembles nylon tights – flesh-toned, almost like a fabric, but filled with a gravelly substance. These spill out and coil up, dangling out of the dog’s body like internal organs. It almost seems like the dog has five legs, because one of the organs hangs down to the plinth the dog is standing on. It’s a small detail that adds to the surreal quality of the piece.

The texture of the gravelly substance hints at something more sinister – it is in fact chemical fertiliser, perhaps, a reference to the artificial means of sustenance. The figure’s body, muscular and compact, carries an unsettling realism, but it’s clearly no ordinary dog. Its posture is poised, the ears pricked as if alert to something – maybe a threat, maybe a change in the environment. It stares directly at you, almost like it’s waiting for a response, with a watchful intensity.

Despite its imposing presence, the dog doesn’t appear aggressive. It’s not baring its teeth, and its stance doesn’t feel threatening – just alert, almost frozen in time.

In the context of the exhibition, with its focus on women artists, the symbolism deepens. The use of artificial fertiliser, something meant to sustain life, feels out of place within the body of this dog– unnatural and unsettling. This could evoke the roles women were expected to play during a troubling period in history, where fertility and reproduction were imposed ideals. Dobermans were infamously used by Nazi officers at concentration camps. The piece invites a conversation about the power and the burden of such expectations, and the tension between life and destruction.

A dog, both lifelike and lifeless, caught in a moment of suffering and survival, poised in a surreal, unsettling world.

Votive offerings are figurative objects or paintings given in worship to a God, a Saint, a Spirit, or an Ancestor. They’re found all over the world and in nearly every religion, stretching back to antiquity.

In Ancient Greece or Egypt, you might leave a small carving of a body part that needed healing at the foot of the statue of a God, praying for divine intercession. It is the same in contemporary Latin America, where you can buy any number of small metal milagros, representing the things we need, to be given over in request or gratitude to the Virgin and her army of Saints.

Ex-votos are figurative offerings made to Saints or to God in fulfillment of a vow. It comes from the Latin ex voto suscepto – meaning, ‘from the vow made’. What did Renate Bertlmann vow here? Two breasts inside a heart, with a mirrored blade jutting out of one nipple as if to say “do not touch, I bite back.” A vow, perhaps, to be respected. Or a vow to take revenge.

In this piece, we find a striking and unsettling sculpture in the shape of a heart. At the centre of this sculptural heart are two human-like breasts. The surface looks fleshy and soft, and the colour and smooth texture resemble human skin. But these breasts are much larger than real-life breasts. Upon closer inspection, one of the breasts has a sharp knife blade protruding outwards from inside the nipple, while the other has a slit at the end of the nipple. The knife is sleek, sharp, and about three inches long, positioned to point directly at anyone standing in front of the sculpture. It’s threatening.

The title of the work is Ex Voto, and it was made by the artist Renate Bertlmann, who was born in Vienna in 1943. Bertlmann is a leading Austrian feminist avant-garde visual artist whose work focuses on the issues surrounding themes of sexuality, love, gender and eroticism within a social context.

The entire sculpture is displayed inside an acrylic case, which is mounted on the wall at about chest height – roughly a meter and a half from the floor. The case creates a sense of distance from the piece, inviting you to move around it for different perspectives. From the front, the knife appears less menacing, almost hidden by the form of the body, but from the side, its very real sharpness becomes much more evident.

The texture of the breasts and their surrounding heart-shape is soft, but the materials used are clearly synthetic, possibly polyurethane foam. The sculpture is almost cartoonish in its simplicity, with the pinkish hue making it unsettlingly lifelike yet fake at the same time.

The presence of the knife is significant. It looks surgical, like a scalpel, suggesting a connection to the human body and its vulnerability. It seems as though the blade is both coming out of and going into the body, implying a defensive gesture. The knife may not be intended for harm but rather for protection. The breast, often a symbol of nurturing, is now turned into something defensive, even violent. The erotic ideas that might be associated with breasts are challenged by the presence of the blade. These breasts are definitely not sexual.

The sculpture might mean different things to different people. For example, it might suggest an unsettling connection to the idea of motherhood and femininity. The sculpture complicates the traditional understanding of breasts as nurturing, protective objects. Instead, this piece seems to turn that idea against itself. It might remind some people of the pain women experience, such as sharp, menstrual discomfort. The sculpture and its title, Ex Voto, might also suggest a link to Catholicism and the iconography around saints and martyrs, particularly Saint Agatha, who is often depicted carrying her breasts on a platter. Amongst other things, Saint Agatha is the patron saint of breast cancer patients.

The sculpture does not resemble a human body in any realistic sense. Instead, it feels like a distorted, surreal object. The heart, simplified and stylised, is a symbolic representation of love, but one that is complicated and disrupted by the presence of the knife.

In the second room of the galleries stands an extraordinary artwork: a cabinet. At one and a half meters tall, it’s close to average human height. When fully opened, its doors span nearly three meters, revealing the intricate details created by the artist, Ursula.

This work is titled Pandora’s Large Cabinet and it was made in 1966 by the artist known as Ursula, who was born in Brandenburg, Germany, in 1921. Ursula’s work was often powerfully sensual and intense. It encompassed painting, drawing, collage, assemblage and installation, and she exhibited regularly in international galleries and museums until her death in Cologne in 1999.

The cabinet itself has a painted black background – the shape is simple in form, with plain metal legs. The exterior is adorned with painted images, stylistically somewhere between abstract and figurative. Human faces and natural forms are painted on the outside of the doors, mountains, trees, feathers and ferns are all colourfully represented across the cabinet’s exterior. It displays five bushy animal tails, varying in length, dangling from the centre compartment of the cabinet. Equally spaced between the cabinet doors, each tail differs in colour moving through gradients of grey, brown and white.

Inside, it overflows with colour, textures and fantastic objects like pink and blue creatures with human eyes and teeth. Their odd-looking eyes and twisted limbs seem to morph into one another, adding to the surreal atmosphere. Like many Surrealist works it has a sense of Hieronymous Bosch’s nightmare-ish landscapes, less dark in nature though, more inexplicable.

Smaller compartments nest within the cabinet, there are peacock feathers, a cracked mirror and even a painted rock mounted on some fur. Some creatures appear to play instruments – horns and drums. On the left, a large pink octopus-like figure launches arrows or harpoons from its hands. They are embellished by feathers, beads and unexpected materials, creating this dreamlike scene.

On the left-hand door, a figure with doll-like, googly eyes is made of fluffy black fur and it’s gazing towards the other door. On the right-hand door, there’s a figure with a bird peering over its shoulder. It seems to have a brown furry beard on its head but it’s difficult to tell whether it’s the back or the front of its head. The figure’s right hand is raised as though it’s gesturing. The upper body is covered in dense brown fur, embedded with small metal objects – recognisable as razor blades, some even engraved with the names of their manufacturers.

A lot of the painted elements are made of little dots in a pointillist style. Every centimetre of the cabinet is alive with detail – a labour of love that feels both improvisational and intentional. The colours are bright and vibrant, the forms surreal and the overall effect mesmerising.

Listen to the conversation between Dr. Clare O’Dowd and Professor Patricia Allmer, curators of The Traumatic Surreal, to learn more about this piece.

(C) This piece is really stunning. I mean it’s huge, it’s the biggest object in the exhibition. There are a lot of doors opening in this object, there’s a lot of potential horrors that could come out of it.
(P) It’s magnificent, isn’t it? Of course, the myth of Pandora is all about…
(C) …the unleashing of war and pestilence and famine and death.
(P) I don’t even know where to start because, well…
(C) There’s so much in it.
(C) There is not this direct, “I look at it and this is where it starts,” but it’s quite hectic engagement, where you start from different ways, and this might be one of the answers to “how you address trauma?” It’s not just “This is the way,” but you try different ways, you explore different ways, some boxes you can open a little bit more, see a glimmer, a glimpse. You will never see the full story – that’s the point.