Let's Talk About Rape: Photography as Testimony, Resistance, and Repair

Vogue

3 days ago

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.
Dominga, an Indigenous Ixil Maya survivor of conflict-related sexual violence from Guatemala.
Let's Talk About Rape is a collaborative, trauma-informed project where survivors use self-portraiture with a shutter release cable to reclaim their stories—transforming image-making into a powerful act of healing and empowerment.
©2024 Jadwiga Brontē & Dominga Concepcion Martinez Diaz
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.