The big, long wall of the Coffeehouse in Uptown Normal is a frequent place to see local art on display. And for just one more week, patrons and passersby can see “Survivor Love Letter,” a special gallery in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
This is the second year Kylie Ashton Maurer has organized her collection of art and letters sharing survivors’ stories. Last year, the gallery was at Normal Public Library. In moving to the Coffeehouse, accessibility was paramount for Maurer.
“I don’t want it to just be for paying patrons,” she said. “Even if you don’t want to come into the Coffeehouse, we have plastered the front windows with these lanyards of hearts and letters that can be read from outside.”
Maurer put out a call for artworks; some are donated by the artists and others are on loan, to be returned after the show. The gallery is a combination of various mediums—everything from fine art like painting and photography to short stories, film and poetry.
“It’s really important to me to get (the artists’) consent on everything,” Maurer said. “Do you want your name with it? Do you want it to be anonymous? How do you want your work described and displayed? Having their input is of utmost importance to me.”
Letters written on construction paper hearts are collected through community events and workshops at high schools, sororities, through Students Ending Rape Culture at Illinois State University and with YWCA’s Stepping Stones program.
“During all those events I talk about my project, I tell my story and I invite people to write a letter to a survivor they know, a survivor they don’t know, themselves or a younger version of themselves,” said Maurer.
Those letters, and others written by visitors to the Coffeehouse at a station in the middle of the café, have been added to the gallery throughout the month. Maurer will bring them with her to a retreat for sexual assault survivors she attends in North Carolina.
Maurer was raped in 2015. “I didn’t know what to do with that,” she said. “I was really lost and really broken.”
Maurer didn’t tell anyone about the assault for years and suffered from PTSD—which three-quarters of victims experience. Eventually, she got help and sought therapy.
“Every time I spoke up and told my story, someone told a story in return,” she said.
The “Survivor Love Letter” movement was initiated by filmmaker and activist Tani Ikeda. Maurer reached out to Ikeda for permission to replicate the idea in Bloomington-Normal.
“She said absolutely, that’s the point—to get the word out,” Maurer said. “So, I started collecting these letters.”
On first glance, “Survivor Love Letter” is joyful and colorful. You have to get close to see the trauma in each piece. Maurer is cautious about the balance between censoring people’s stories and not wanting to trigger or retraumatize people who come across them while getting a cup of coffee.
“I have chosen very intentionally to share my story,” Maurer said. “I’m not ashamed of what happened to me. There’s no correct way to be a survivor. We don’t change the tide by paper cutting ourselves again and again. We change the tide by doing what we can.”
Maurer wishes she could be a "fly on the wall" and is largely left to wonder what folks see and feel viewing the gallery.
“At the end of the day, this project is just me,” she said. “That’s been an honor to hold these stories and this space for our community. And it’s a big project. I was not certain I’d do it again this year.”
But the responses she has gotten have been encouraging and motivated Maurer to give it another go.
“We had an anonymous letter given to the Normal Public Library," she said. "While I was putting the gallery up, I had a woman come up and say, ‘These letters are to me,’ and she sat down and told me her story. That’s what matters to me.”
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, three in 10 sexual assaults are reported to the police. Five percent of perpetrators are arrested; less than 3% are incarcerated.
“If you decide to go to the police and try to get justice, you have to build up all this strength when you are powerless,” Maurer said. “You get there, and a lot of times, you have the door shut in your face.”
Maurer’s experience with the justice system was frustrating and unproductive.
“I never got justice and so few people do,” she said. “We have this potential energy, where you finally build up your courage—if you ever choose to, because it is a choice—and when that door is shut in your face you have to do something with that energy. There are a lot of different outlets for that; the gallery is an important space for that.”
“Survivor Love Letter” is on view at the Coffeehouse, 114 E. Beaufort St. in Normal, through April 30.
