Biographies

In dialogue with the participants, their respective biographies are developed with the aid of the Matrix Method, which depicts their lives as a sequence of events and decisions, of actions and reactions. The method is based on an extensive documentation of terms that have emerged from conversations in the context of many years of working with addicted women in all previous prison projects. This database contains recurring basic terms that form the ‘matrix’ of their living conditions, so to speak. It is an offer to the women involved to freely select the words that suit them and to assign them to the respective stages of their individual biography, in order to provide information about traumatic experiences that could not previously be communicated without a predetermined emotional charge or suggestive evaluation.

When the participants then actually record their biography, the process gives rise to a remarkable effect: for the first time, most of the participants experience a kind of legitimisation of their life story, which is combined with the need to articulate it in public

After the biography has been finalised, the participants identify places that are connected with the context of the events mentioned. Next, each sentence is assigned to a specific place and indicated on a map, which gives an impression of the individual places and situations as well as the geographic location.