NUMB is a documentary photography project that uses blacklight, paint, and the body to make visible what sexual trauma forces into darkness. It began as a self-portrait series where I pointed the camera at myself, facing the parts of my history I had kept hidden for years. I am expanding to include other women's stories, because this silence is not mine alone.

The method is simple and deliberate. I paint words, symbols, and markings onto the skin, the photograph under blacklight. In that light, the body becomes a somatic map.

I am a survivor of sexual assault. I never reported what happened to me, and by not speaking, I trapped it in my body. I created these images during my MA in Documentary Photography at the University of the Arts London during the COVID lockdown. I slept in the paint. I photographed late into the night over a full week, alone. I did this because I had the space and time to process my emotions, to keep working when I did not want to, and to capture the raw truth of what healing actually looks like: nonlinear, exhausting, and unglamorous.

It took me four years to release this work. I was afraid of what it meant to let it exist in the world. I worried about my family seeing it and judging my choices. I hid at the end of a bottle, using alcohol to dissociate further. It wasn’t until I decided to get sober that I finally allowed myself to confront the work clearly and give it the life it deserved.