Exhibit P* interrogates the psychological impacts of sexual abuse and an ensuing unforgiving navigation of a broken criminal justice system, through live art. Edlyn uses ritualistic painting, water, poetry and soundscape to embody conversations with their memory, recounting and expressing a turbulent relationship to their body. It is an abstracting expression of Edlyn’s queer perspective of the fragmentation of PTSD.

Edlyn paints with their whole body in response to a poetic narrative, which is woven through a soundscape of disappointing legal letters, leading them to eventually seek sanctuary in water and its natural sensations.

Exhibit P* offers an authentic account of the distress when social systems which are intended to support and to liberate, instead proliferate harm.

Previously workshopped during Bold Mellon’s Ugly Duck residency 2024 and at King’s Head Theatre 2023/2024, Exhibit P* had an R&D period/work-in-progress sharing at Stanley Arts in December 2024 which also entailed training to develop trauma-informed practices in creative devising and facilitation. This was generously supported by Culture Croydon Legacy Fund.

Exhibit P* is now being developed to further invite audiences to consider topics of sexual abuse and trauma, which are not discussed publicly for fear of being ‘taboo’ or ‘shameful’, challenging socio-political systems which seek to hide and minimise pain.

This performance invites the audience into an exposing psyche, encouraging them to hold space and help create a living exhibition together