Inspired by my own family secrets, what haunts... is an interactive art installation that explores secrets and their universality. Viewers respond and participate by reading and adding, in anonymity, their own - often-intimate - secrets to the installation. The varied secrets evoke sadness, horror, shock, humor, and reassurance. They "are riveting to read, telling stories of abortion, adoption, and affairs mixed with more universal confessions, like, 'my heart is broken and I am terrified.'" - Cathy McLaurin
The artist reports people are strongly drawn to this art piece. Probably because all of us keep secrets.
I was taught to teach children not to keep certain secrets (like that they are being abused).
Secrets can be a torment and a burden.
Many of us keep secrets for decades. Many die with our secrets still buried deep in our psyches and in our hearts...aching for release.
But then...secrets are so tantillizing aussi.
So it's intriguing isn't it, that while we are compelled to keep secrets, this piece of art shows we are just as driven to expose them. The curtained "room" where the participants pen their secrets anonymously becomes a confessional.
Aren't we interesting, complex creatures?