There are people who will work to see.


... "Bio" is composed of drawings sandwiched between two layers of drafting film. In order to clearly see some of the drawings, viewers were asked to lightly touch the film to bring images into focus. The drawings were collected from Schirmer's journals recounting experimentation and conditioning/torture sessions from her childhood.
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“Party”, pencil on paper, 60” x 96”, 2007

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Franklin & Madeline

Schirmer Studio

Schirmer’s personal experiences are echoed not only by the witnesses in the Franklin case, but by tens of thousands of others whose stories have yet to come to light. At a very young age, and already in the hands of a trafficking network, Schirmer was inducted into a tax-funded medical and behavioral experimentation program. Her work in this show centers around her experiences as “Madeline”, one of the names assigned to her as a subject inside the program.


Statement: Lynn Schirmer

My drawings and paintings visually describe the process of dissociation, a naturally occurring and adaptive response to traumatic experiences. Most people may have experienced what is known as highway hypnosis, the feeling of having arrived home without having paid attention to every turn or stop along the way. Others may know of someone who could not remember the details of a car accident or other traumatic moment. The psychological mechanism at work in both cases is dissociation.

According to declassified documents, during the height of the Cold War, dissociation and its attending amnesia became the focus of ongoing government behavioral and interrogation research. Attempts were made to manipulate dissociative responses, to condition subjects to predictably experience amnesia for specific events or activities. The goal was to eventually produce a functional split personality whose alter aspects could be called upon to perform tasks without the host personality’s awareness.

Born into a family involved in criminal activity, at the age of three I was sold into one of these programs. Throughout my childhood I endured periodic conditioning sessions at a number of facilities including hospitals, universities, and military bases. In order to induce an effective dissociative state, and to insure compliance, the conditioning often involved torture and sexual assault. My art documents my experiences as an unwitting child and adult experimental subject in these still largely unexposed programs.

Posted: Fri - December 7, 2007 at 03:13 PM            

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