Ivana Landmann [1984] A
Biography
I am the religious child of my beloved parents
At age three my father forces me to watch as he rapes my mother
At age five my mother’s lover starts sexually abusing me
At age eight my father abducts me and declares my mother dead
At age nine my father terrorizes me and my mother with sexual violence
At age ten my father orders me to punish him by inflicting physical harm on him and tries to kill us both
At age eleven my brother is born and my stepfather stops raping me
At age eleven I have to leave grammar school, suffer from anorexia and receive psychiatric treatment for hallucinations
At age thirteen I use speed, tranquillizers, alcohol and methadone
At age fourteen I discover my bisexuality
At age fourteen I lead an intense, restless life without knowing how I can prove myself
At age fifteen I run away from boarding school, communal residence projects and homes, and become a prostitute to get an endless supply of heroin
At age fifteen I look for, and find, a sense of belonging in the community of outsiders
At age fifteen my stepfather accuses me in court of seducing him and is released from jail early
At age sixteen, as a result of taking fewer drugs, I suffer from paranoia, psychosis and hallucinations
At age sixteen I am diagnosed as having cirrhosis of the liver
Since I was sixteen, my life has been saved several times by emergency admissions after polytoxicomanic drug use
At age seventeen my father has me forcibly committed to a youth psychiatric clinic
At age seventeen I am given my first prison sentence
Since I was seventeen, I have been given prison sentences for illegal prostitution, drug dealing, robbery and theft and dealing in stolen property
At age seventeen I rent some space to live in the villa of my uncle and his whores
At age twenty-two my poison relationship with the man I love comes to an end
At age twenty-three I am clean and have no idea what to do with my boundless energy
From a dialogue with the participant and with the aid of the matrix a biography of basic facts is developed, which portrays the person’s life as a sequence of events and decisions, of acts and reactions.
The texts of the biographies are spoken by the participants themselves, and recorded for the audio modules of the Baby Dolls and the project’s audio archive.