Today we’d like to introduce you to Erica Hart.
Erica, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m a filmmaker and video editor, community organizer, and rape and assault survivor and advocate.
In 2016, I was contacted by a man who had assaulted me at a party years before. He was contacting me to apologize. In the years that followed, we kept in touch sporadically. Following the powerful #metoo movement, I asked him if he would be willing to meet with me on camera, to have a conversation about that night and hopefully seek some healing. He agreed and the conversation became the soon-to-be-released short documentary Gray Area. Being a documentary filmmaker, I was in a unique position to capture this conversation and share my story. Gray Area is also becoming a podcast series, wherein we hear from fellow survivors about their healing journeys.
I believe I’ve always been a vocal person, someone that believes in the power of conversation to normalize, de-stigmatize, lighten the load. Of course, before I knew big words like that, I think I was just a boisterous kid who some would classify as an “oversharer.”
I’ve always been curious about the human experience and the lives of the people around me. I realized early on that by sharing my own vulnerabilities, people around me would feel more comfortable sharing theirs as well. This has translated in many ways – from documentary filmmaking where I’ve recorded some of life’s most vulnerable events, to my body positive Instagram account, to my work with the Gray Area film and podcast, to my everyday life of simply interacting with humans in this world. Whatever I touch, I try to infuse it with honesty, vulnerability, and acceptance.
Has it been a smooth road?
Well, of course not! Who do you know that would describe their human journey as “smooth?” My life, just like everyone’s, is complicated and wrought with difficulty. I’ve battled demons like everyone–from an eating disorder to anxiety, to rape and assault, to watching John Travolta say “Adele Dazeem” that one time. We’ve all been through something!
I’ve observed myself in the aftermath of trauma. In those moments, I stay quiet until months or years later when I’m ready to share my story. And I always look back and realize how incredibly isolating it was until I finally told my story. I’m not an advocate for sharing your vulnerabilities and traumas with the world before you’re ready. I don’t think that’s healthy or smart. But I do know once I share my pain, it’s always made lighter just by the act of telling the story.
I’m right smack dab in the middle of a major trauma that I have yet to share with almost a single human. It’s not the right time. But I observe myself walking around with this secret grief and pain and I know the simple act of sharing it outloud when I’m ready will make it that much lighter.
No surprise, I’m a big huge GIGANTIC advocate of therapy. Find a great therapist and stick to your appointments consistently, even if you think you’re fine! It’s so frickin hard to be a human and none of us are fine. Giving myself permission to have a professional listen to me for 50 minutes every week is the single best thing I’ve done for myself ever.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Gray Area is a short documentary wherein I speak to the man who sexually assaulted me several years ago. We are soon to be launching a podcast of the same name. With both the film and the podcast, I hope to provide a healing resource from an actual survivor. I can remember what it felt like each morning after an assault or rape (because, like many survivors, I don’t have just one story of assault in my survivor story list.) I remember feeling so lost and hopeless. And I knew there were hundreds of resources out there for me. I wasn’t going to call the police or a lawyer, but I knew there were organizations I could contact, support groups, forums, professionals in some form to help me. All that seemed so buttoned up and clinical.
In the moments after an assault, and even years after, there’s so much mixed emotion, so much confusion and shock. And the last thing I wanted was a sterile-feeling approach to my own healing. I’m a real woman. I’m complicated. All I wanted in that moment was hope, and maybe a little laughter or lightness. I wanted the assurance that I would be okay, that I could still be the complicated woman I am, that being raped hadn’t taken everything away from me. So with the film and the podcast, I hope to show the realistic, complicated side of being a survivor while imparting hope by sharing the stories and healing journeys of fellow survivors. I believe what is heavy is made lighter by sharing and I believe in the power of conversation to heal us.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Los Angeles has been my home for just shy of ten years. I love it immensely. It’s, of course, an amazing city to be in for media makers and creators like myself. I simply love the density and diversity of the people in this city. There’s no shortage of interesting folks to meet and amazing human interactions to participate in throughout the city. I love being in a giant city as I quite like the feeling of being a small fish in a big pond. I want to always be striving for more and working towards a goal. I wouldn’t want to feel like a big fish as I don’t ever want to feel stagnant like I got so damn big for my pond I just stopped swimming. I want to be the Michael Phelps of short docs and podcasts about rape and assault, but like Michael Phelps in the middle of the Pacific ocean recording a podcast. I feel like this fish metaphor fell apart…
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1463926962/gray-area
- Instagram: @ericamichellehart
- Twitter: @Erica_M_Hart
- Other: http://www.ericamhart.com/
Image Credit:
Photos with pink background: Claire Wright; Photo in underwear: FIGS underwear and Scarlett Rose Patterson; Photo in green leather jacket: Eric A. Reid
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