Renske Westra [1972] NL
Biography
I am born prematurely and survive my disability
At age two, I am taken out of the hospital and brought home
As a young child, I am being treated as a deformed child by my parents and punished at school for lagging behind in my development
At age eight, I start drinking my alcoholic father’s booze
At age seventeen, I fall in love with a compulsive gambler
At age eighteen, I drink excessive amounts of alcohol
At age eighteen, I begin systematically to seduce men and take them home
At age twenty, I am committed to a hospital to be treated for my defect
At age twenty-two, I am being abused by my intoxicated husband
At age twenty-three, I suffer from pains and am hospitalized
At age twenty-five, I am being treated like an inferior child by my husband and neglect myself
At age twenty-six, I decide to destroy myself
At age twenty-seven, I am depressed
At age twenty-eight, I cannot remember that I may have been raped while drunk
At age twenty-eight, I am chased out of the house by my husband and my parents
At age twenty-eight, my cousin’s drug addiction is kept secret within the family
At age twenty-eight, I flee Friesland, go into rehab, and live under the protection of the rehab program
At age thirty, I am depressed and committed to a psychiatric hospital in a state of shock
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.