The immersive experience “In Someone Else’s Shoes” will open its doors October 3 and 4 at the Oculus in Manhattan. The campaign is driven by Santander bank in collaboration by NCADV and NNEDV to bring awareness about domestic violence.
“From the outside it looks like a “normal house,” but inside this normality is transformed into “a labyrinth, to give a type of physical experience to the public about the great difficulty in finding a way out” of these types of situations.
”We’ve created a house that starts with a series of rooms and when you move through there are certain surprising threats like doors that close and some that don’t have doorknobs. There’s no way to go back” the way you have come either, she said.
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As one takes the 12-minute tour of the various rooms within the home, one hears fragments of conversations, songs and sounds, steadily immersing oneself in the experiences of women who have suffered physical violence and whose lives - just like in Saunders’ artificial house - transform themselves from the idyllic into a recurring nightmare.
”This is about building a house to raise awareness (about domestic violence) but it specifically responds to the question about why you just don’t leave, which is a question that people always pose in cases of domestic violence,” Saunders told EFE.
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“A través de un pasillo repleto de fotos de infancia y de familia, muchas donadas por mujeres que han sobrevivido a relaciones de abuso, se entra en un dormitorio con libros, entradas de espectáculos y joyas sobre un tocador mientras por los cascos se empieza a escuchar la canción “Can’t take my eyes of you” (No puedo apartar mi mirada de ti).
Con la melodía de fondo, arrancan los testimonios de mujeres maltratadas que recuerdan con entusiasmo los primeros momentos de sus relaciones.
“Yo era como una princesa”, dice una voz; “Todo lo que quería se había vuelto realidad”, dice otra mientras se escucha la canción: “Tu eres demasiado buena para ser realidad”.
Pero poco a poco las frases van superponiéndose y dejan de ser entendibles, la música se para, la puerta de la habitación se cierra y un descubre que en la puerta no hay pomo para poder abrirla, tampoco ventana por donde escapar.
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