By Hannah Pecyna
In this body of works, I explored my past experiences specifically focusing on moments of lost innocence. A loss of innocence is a common theme in literature in which a protagonist has an experience that leads to a greater awareness of the negative aspects of the world. This is usually shown through one experience. I believe that in the course of each person’s story, there is not just one but many losses of innocence which shape them. During quarantine, I have had a lot of time to reflect and understand which of my life experiences caused me to lose a shred of my innocence and how each experience impacted me greatly. Although it often has a negative connotation, I believe that a loss of innocence is not a negative experience. In the process of making these works, I explored this idea and learned that even in the worst of moments, the experience will help you to learn and grow as an individual. I learned a period of reflection and appreciation regarding the more negative experiences in your life can be essential to self actualization. We are consistently learning and growing as individuals. The lessons we learn are only worth something if we take the time to contemplate and recognize what we are being taught. The aim of these works is to challenge the viewer to reflect on their own experiences where they lost a shred of their innocence. From the acknowledgement of the momentary lapses where our innocence can be diminished, we can begin to heal from those experiences and use them to further understand ourselves, our emotions and how to carry on from our past. I titled this project Lapse because each work focuses on a specific momentary lapse in time in which I lost a fragment of my innocence, for better or for worse. I am interested in further exploring this idea by examining other peoples’ experiences of lost innocence and understanding how they have been shaped by their past.
