“TORTURE PRESERVED” exhibit of sculptures of torture victims, by Lin Lisberger of Gorham, Maine. Thursday, May 31 through Thursday, June 5. At the Meg Perry Center, 644 Congress Street, Portland.

Artist Statement Torture Preserved is a series that comes out of a necessity to acknowledge the cruelty that exists in the world. These sculptures were made to honor victims of torture. I was led to these particular images upon hearing a story about a memorial to the Rwandan genocide where the people of the community where the killings took place decided to memorialize the victims by preserving their bodies in lime. The memorial is difficult to be at and assaults the visitors’ senses, but its power is astonishing. One of the notable things about the victims is their hands, many of them still shielding their faces and bodies ten years after their deaths. The torture scandals in Iraq, and the African civil wars and famines are also reflected in this series. The hands are important in each of these and are the shield and the voice of the victims, and a universal cry for help.

These iconographic images of torture that we see and hear from around the world infiltrate our collective conscience. For me, they have created an intense awareness of the conflict between personal existence in a safe, protected environment, and the vulnerability to misplaced power struggles confronting so many in the world.

Lin Lisberger