A Thousand Hands A Million Stars.
A Thousand Hands: A Million Stars is a creative, collaborative effort uniting visual art, poetry, music and song created and performed all by women as a vehicle to bring awareness, empowerment and a voice to those that have been rendered silent and hopeless by their experience in human sex trafficking. In doing so, the women artists are partnering in a cause championed by multiple organizations dedicated to the healing of survivors of trafficking. Outside of awareness, the artistic, literary and musical project is designed to illicit a genuine emotional response and empathy for an often misrepresented and misunderstood issue. An in-person experience of the cross-collaborative efforts may serve as a force for change in perceptions, support and help for the survivors of human sex trafficking.
The artists of “A Thousand Hands: A Million Stars” have taken inspiration through survivors’ experiences and stories, contributing to personal narratives of their journey in, through and out of human sex trafficking in hopes of providing visibility to the invisible victims and the power of recovery and healing. This project is interactive, community-driven, collaborative and speaks to civil and city issues with human trafficking.
DATES
FEBRUARY 22-24, 2024, Dream Big Collaborative Piano Conference, and Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Manitoba Canada
SEPTEMBER 18 Premiere, The Toledo Museum / Center for Visual Arts
A highlight at the International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference in Toledo
At Toledo Arts Momentum
December, University of Toledo, Toledo Ohio
January, State Capital, Toledo Ohio
JANUARY 29, University of Ohio in Athens, Ohio 7:30PM
FEBRUARY 8th Chapman University, California 5:00PM
FEBRUARY 12th Santa Clara University, Santa Clara California 12:00 Noon Concert Series
FEBRUARY 13 Reinhardt University, Georgia Evening showing. Time To Be Announced.
MARCH 12 - 14 A Powerful Force: Women in Music, Ball State University, Muncie IN
A Thousand Hands
A thousand hands touched my body, stripping me of essence and self
left barren, vulnerable to the whim of the man, the men,
the monsters that come at night and at day
The fists, bruises and branding of iron that burned not only into my skin
but my etched into my mind
Held in bonds of chains, tethered and wrapped tightly,
my purgatorial state of waiting
weeping and tears could not wash away the shame, the pain, the defeat
my body left lifeless, still and quiet no longer moves at will
It is confined to the rule of another, its purpose defined by the pleasure of others
Unable to cleanse the inside and out; to purify my mind of the putrid imposition
Of the dirt and shame thrown against my back every day like the master’s whip
my body invaded with its disease slowly metastasizing
occupying everything that was once mine
No part of me was left untouched or unscathed
Leeching and bleeding my sense of self,
leaving me with nothing but an empty shell
That exploitation that served to harden my heart now detached and devoid of feeling
Those vectors of contempt inscribed on my soul infinite pathways of shattering memory
A thousand hands touched my body and a million stars went dark.