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Trigger Warning
Trigger Warning is a powerful self-portrait confronting censorship, language, and the politicization of identity. Referencing the list of banned or discouraged “trigger words” in U.S. federal grant writing, Samuel Avery transforms his own body into a living archive of erased language.
Covered in words such as transgender, Black, disabled, women, and equality, the artist highlights how language itself becomes a battleground. These terms are not abstract—they represent real lives, communities, and lived experiences. By silencing them, institutions attempt to render those realities invisible.
Avery’s work exposes the violence embedded in bureaucratic control, where the removal of words becomes a strategy of erasure. The portrait is both vulnerable and defiant: a refusal to be edited out, a reclamation of identity through visibility. Trigger Warning stands as a testament to the power of naming—and the danger of its suppression.
Description
Trigger Warning is a powerful self-portrait confronting censorship, language, and the politicization of identity. Referencing the list of banned or discouraged “trigger words” in U.S. federal grant writing, Samuel Avery transforms his own body into a living archive of erased language.
Covered in words such as transgender, Black, disabled, women, and equality, the artist highlights how language itself becomes a battleground. These terms are not abstract—they represent real lives, communities, and lived experiences. By silencing them, institutions attempt to render those realities invisible.
Avery’s work exposes the violence embedded in bureaucratic control, where the removal of words becomes a strategy of erasure. The portrait is both vulnerable and defiant: a refusal to be edited out, a reclamation of identity through visibility. Trigger Warning stands as a testament to the power of naming—and the danger of its suppression.
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