What I find particularly inspiring is the way people throughout history have sought to reclaim words and symbols to negate their power. The Nazis forced people they identified as gay to wear inverted pink triangles, but that symbol was later embraced into a sign of solidarity for the gay community. In the recent exhibition, The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming, portraits by artist Frances F. Denny presented the face of modern American witchcraft and challenged our assumptions about who and what a witch really is.

Another poignant example of this power shift is found in PEM's upcoming show, Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love. Kelly appropriated the racist symbol of the golliwog into his fashion as a sobering example of racist imagery and caricature, forcing us to confront and not forget the pain symbols like these have caused, turning it outward and transforming it into a symbol of empowerment.

Recently I had a moment where I understood how a symbol could be wholly transformed, and it all had to do with a simple flower. Growing up, I heard the word “pansy” thrown around a lot, and it was that kind of word that I lived in constant fear of someone directing at me. It meant you were weak, less than a man, different. At the time it was a perfectly accepted way to demean another person. It was one of those words that are just a candy-coated way to say something without using the horrible word; I mean, what the fudge?