There are wounds so deep that language fails them. Rape is one of them. It silences by force and then by shame—leaving survivors isolated not only in their pain, but in their perceived inability to speak of it. Let’s Talk About Rape, the long-term project by photographer and activist Jadwiga Brontē, confronts that silence with radical clarity, creating a space where testimony, solidarity, and visibility converge.
Composed of over 250 self-portraits and personal statements by survivors of sexual violence around the world, the project resists the logic of anonymity or abstraction. Each participant chooses how to be seen—how to pose, what to reveal, and what to say. The images are not clinical or voyeuristic; they are vulnerable and composed, often serene, occasionally confrontational, always dignified. The viewer is not granted access by force, but invited to witness with care.
Brontē’s project reminds us that, even in a world saturated with images of suffering, rape remains persistently underrepresented. We have seen countless photographs of war, famine, displacement, and protest. But testimony about sexual violence, especially in the form of self-representation, is rare. Why is it still so difficult to look? What systems continue to prevent survivors from being heard or believed? Let’s Talk About Rape poses these questions with quiet insistence.
This work is also a testament to the fact that rape is not an individual tragedy—it is a structural, global crisis. Survivors in this project come from different countries, religions, ages, sexual orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds. This diversity reveals what is often obscured: rape does not discriminate, and it is not confined to any single culture or context. It is enabled by patriarchal systems of domination and silence across the globe.
In its scale and intention, the project forms a living archive—one that refuses er asure. It creates a platform where trauma is not reduced to spectacle, but shared as truth. Importantly, it is not only about exposure. It is about agency. In choosing to speak, in shaping their own visual and textual narratives, the survivors reclaim power.
We might turn to philosopher Kelly Oliver, who argues that witnessing must move beyond passive observation to what she calls response-ability—the ethical imperative to respond. This is precisely what Let’s Talk About Rape enacts. It demands not only that we look, but that we bear witness in a way that affirms the subjectivity and agency of survivors.
The project also echoes literary theorist Cathy Caruth’s reflections on trauma—that it is not simply an event that has passed but one that returns, insisting on being heard. In giving visual and textual form to that return, Brontē creates a structure through which trauma can finally find a listener. Her work holds space for what Caruth describes as the mind’s delayed awakening to the knowledge of trauma—a knowledge that is always belated, fragmented, and deeply embodied.
Photography here becomes more than medium—it becomes method, protest, catharsis. The self-portrait, traditionally a tool of self-fashioning, is transformed into a space of reclamation. As Susan Sontag wrote, “to photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed.” In Brontē’s project, this appropriation is reversed: the subject takes back authorship.
There is also a historical urgency to the work. From Bosnia to Rwanda to Ukraine, rape has been used as a weapon of war—a strategy of domination, humiliation, and ethnic terror. The silence that often follows these atrocities compounds the violence. Brontē’s work intervenes in that silence, insisting on the visibility of survivors not as victims, but as narrators.
The ethics of viewing are complex. To look at these images is not to consume them, but to be summoned—to care, to reflect, and to respond. The project demands responsibility from its viewers. It offers no resolution, but opens a space for recognition.
In dialogue with feminist visual traditions—think Jo Spence and Ana Mendieta—Brontē’s project carves its own terrain. It is deeply contemporary, shaped by digital intimacy and global connection, yet grounded in a timeless demand: to be seen, to be believed, to be free.
I have followed Jadwiga Brontē’s journey closely and can personally attest to the depth of her commitment. This project is animated by genuine passion—devoid of ego, rooted in care. It is not just an art project. It is an act of collective resistance. A political gesture. A map of survival.
And, most importantly, it is an invitation: to listen, to speak, and to never again look away.
