Annika Nelson: “I’m hoping my image inspires people to reach out to kids and young adults who feel isolated and don’t always take our gestures of love or kindness the way we’d like them to. I pieced together a collage from odd papers and catalogs lying around the house and then modified the image in the computer to add text and add a few features. Throughout the process of creating the image, I thought about how easy it is to get engrossed in your own troubles or sorrows and how important it is to make those gestures of love and affection even when you think you don’t have any to spare.”
HAYWARD — "Stop Raping And Breaking Hearts!"
Got your attention? Good, says Paola Preciado, a 15-year-old Hayward student.
The artist's anti-rape poster, with that screaming headline, now appears on billboards displayed at 23 bus stops throughout the East Bay, from Richmond to Fremont.
The billboards depict a heart, cracked in half, with tears streaming down front, and lines from two poems that Paola previously had written: "This pain you caused is worse than death itself. "... You don't have any clue what this does to me, not knowing how many tears I cried since you've done this to me "..."
Paola says she has never been sexually assaulted, but knows a friend who was molested as a child. That story, coupled with last year's highly publicized gang rape of a girl outside a homecoming dance at Richmond High School, had the issue of sexual violence weighing heavily on her, she says.
So, when an art teacher had students design posters for the Berkeley-based Health Through Art project, Paola, a sophomore at Tennyson High School, decided to focus on sexual assault — a topic that she says deserves more attention than smoking or alcohol abuse, subjects that some of her peers chose.
"I imagine how important a (lady's virginity) is for her," Paola says of her poster. "For someone to come into your life and just take it away, that's a lot of pain. "... I was speaking for everyone who has been raped."
Her poster was among eight, out of 336 entries, selected for display this year, says Anne Bacon of the Health and Human Resource Education Center, which runs the Health Through Art project.
"Paola's piece was striking. We felt her piece really spoke in a new way to an ongoing issue," says Bacon, adding that the message was timely in light of the Richmond case.
For having her work selected, Paola will receive a $500 gift certificate, good toward a purchase of her choice. Paola plans to spend the money on a laptop computer so she can store all her poems in one place. Writing always has been one of her favorite pastimes, but Paola admits she sometimes doubts the impact of her poems. However, the recognition of her work by the Health Through Art organization has been a confidence booster.
When the billboards went up Wednesday, Paola immediately headed to a bus stop to see one. As she approached the stop, she was thrilled to see two joggers taking a moment to read the billboard. The billboards will remain on display for at least a month. Seeing people react to the poster has inspired Paola to continue writing poetry, she says.
"I want to keep on doing things that will make people reflect on all the problems in the world," she says. "(Writing) is something I know how to do. I've used what's been given to me to do a good thing." [Linh Tat - Bay Area News Group]
Top two photos by Linh Tat, Bottom two photos by ClearChannel
Health Through Art / HHREC
2288 Fulton St. Ste #103
Berkeley, CA 94705