A barbed-wire tail, a cracked golden halo and an arrow labeled with the letter “A” for "adulterous" piercing an anatomically correct heart are all symbols that Denver artist Tlalli chose to wrap into this year’s submission for an art show designed to give voice to survivors of sexual violence.
“For sexual assault survivors, I wanted to put out that there’s an outlet for them to tell their stories but to also just have a place to call home,” Tlalli said. “I would have never been here or healed to this point if I did not receive therapy from The Blue Bench.”
The piece titled “Desarrollando” or “Developing” is part of this year’s third annual RISE Survivor Art Show, featuring over 90 Denver artists and survivors like Tlalli. It's presented by The Blue Bench, a sexual assault prevention nonprofit
The show will be on display at the RemainReal Fine Art Gallery on Santa Fe through April 28. It contains work depicting sensitive themes of sexual violence which may be distressing or triggering to some attendees.
The Blue Bench faces major potential budget cuts in the near future.
“We are all staring down the barrel of something that is unknown and really scary,” said Megan Carvajal, Blue Bench executive director. “These are unprecedented cuts that we thought the federal government would try to solve for and now we’re a little bit on edge.”
The funding in question comes from the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) Fund that is supported by federal criminal fines and penalties and later awarded to organizations supporting victims of crime. More than 200 programs around Colorado, including 28 in Denver, are expected to take a hit after it was announced that there would be a 45 percent cut in VOCA funds for 2024.
This fund accounts for at least 60% of The Blue Bench.
“It’s scary to think about,” Carvajal said. “We don’t know what decisions we are going to have to make. We’re talking about cutting our services by 50 percent and we already have waiting lists.”
The Blue Bench (formerly RAAP) offers low to no-cost client services including a 24-hour hotline for thousands of Denver-area people of all gender identities.
In the 2023 fiscal year, The Blue Bench provided 120 group therapy sessions, 2,600 individual therapy sessions, 315 accompaniments with survivors to law enforcement and made over 1,200 connections to sex offender treatment and probation services on survivors’ behalf. The organization has about a 35-person staff.
These services are sometimes backed up into a two- to four-week waitlist, but Carvajal said cutting services would only exacerbate the wait time and could “mean life or death for a survivor.”
“[The art show] says there’s an organization out there that is for survivors,” Carvajal said. “[It] gives them their voice back, gives them an opportunity to share their story.”
Carvajal said the organization is expected to be notified in July regarding VOCA funds. Efforts to lobby state legislators to establish a fund for victims of crime in Colorado have not been successful. They will have until January 2025 to prepare, giving them a six-month runway to make strategic decisions about the future.
Jenn Merz, artistically known as Jenn Merz ColorQueen, helped co-found the first RISE survivor art show. Her piece titled “Dynamic” is a featured work in this year’s show that was part of a seven-portrait series each representing a different emotion that comes with being a survivor.
A faceless charcoal gray woman twists her torso toward the viewer, backdropped by the colors of what Merz describes as the “healing light” surrounding her.
“['Dynamic'] gave me the courage to walk in and own this body of work,” Merz said. “She represents to this day the most updated version of myself owning the power, the sexuality… the opposite of what my younger self was saying.”
At a private reception of 2024 contributing artists, Merz said many survivors have formed strong connections through the annual RISE show, some even inspiring a brand new installation at this year’s gallery.
“It’s life changing,” Merz said. “We’re elevating each other and letting each other share our stories and voices.”
