CHILDHOOD FRACTURED THE BOOK
Childhood Fractured tells the story of two men, Derek Hopkins and Allen Vandever, and the inception of their art project to creatively address their lived experience of being sexually abused as children.
The focus of the work follows Allen, a contemporary artist, and his compelling series of thirteen paintings. The paintings courageously depict the artist’s own experiences being sexually abused, tortured, and raped as a boy. The series of thirteen took over a year and a half to complete.
Derek Hopkins, a writer, would meet Allen in his art studio and document each of their sessions together. The culmination of this experience can be found in this book.
During the creation of their art project the duo’s focused shifted too raising awareness on child sexual abuse through contemporary art. There are at least 42 million known survivors of child sexual abuse and sexual assault in America.
They started a non-profit under the same name; Childhood Fractured to raise awareness on the fact that at least 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 4 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18 in America.
This book, while being completely outside of the realm of normalcy, illuminates the perspective of male survivors. Droves of men are sexually abused in their youth. This book shines a light on that fact and can provide some helpful tools and respite.
Above all else, this duo’s real hope is to help end the undue suffering of children and to uphold children’s human rights. Child sexual abuse truly is an international pandemic. Race, socioeconomic status, religion, and culture have no bearing on the likelihood of a child failing victim to sexual abuse.
Child sexual abuse, as of yet, hasn’t garnered the real world attention it deserves. It is admittedly hard to talk about, work on, and do something about. This book strongly challenges any preconceived notions one may have about survivors or the topic in general.
All they simply ask is for all of us to do more to combat child sexual abuse.
Our Story
Childhood Fractured is a non-profit humanities-based human rights initiative centered on preventing the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, through contemporary art. Our initiative operates on a multitude of levels in order to best foster civic engagement. We’re bringing the issues of children’s rights to light through contemporary art, writing, workshops, free artisanal coffee, music events, and much more.
The foundation of this project is a series of 14 paintings each with a written narrative meant to explore the childhood sexual abuse of artist, Allen Vandever. This contemporary artwork functions as a creative interface for the public to be made aware of the realities of childhood sexual abuse told from the male perspective and to foster constructive, critical, and positive dialogues on this topic. The artwork and their respective narratives are currently being compiled into a book. This book will also feature expository writings on the topic of childhood sexual abuse, a working understanding of current medical research, and critical analysis of what we can do as a society in relation to childhood sexual abuse and exploitation.
Furthermore, are challenging the individual and their level of awareness regarding the international epidemic of child sexual abuse, encouraging them to do the same, and engage their communities. Substantial, collaborative action is necessary if we are to ensure the psychological, emotional, and physical safety of today’s children and the generations to come.
