The Elephant Room

Sofia Viegas is a Naarm (Melbourne) and Meajin (Brisbane) based film-maker, actor and all-round creative. Her fascination with human adversity as a universal experience has materialised into a remarkable and artistic docuseries, The Elephant Room.

A space for unique strangers to reclaim the ‘ugly’ in their own life, this series gives voice to the experiences and the people on society’s periphery.

Sofia, in her own words, is set on normalising the ugly, highly stigmatised, taboo laiden experiences of the human condition.

The stories told on The Elephant Room are universal in nature, and yet the individual experiences carry an unjust feeling of shame, placed on them by a culture of private suffering. This series hopes to change that.

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It was fascination with adversity from a young age which drove Sofia Viegas towards The Elephant Room. Raised with four siblings by her single Mum, the director has always been acutely aware of hardship.

Sofia: It’s a pretty epic and intense family. It’s given me a rich appreciation for the underdog. I’m very driven to understand the ways in which humans process suffering and grief. I’ve become very fascinated with trauma and psychology, and understanding how people express themselves emotionally.

This seed of curiosity found its way to the medium of film through years of fermenting as an idea. The Elephant Room has found its form as an evocative documentary series, striving to capture the poetic realness which the director is drawn to in harrowing films.

Sofia: Each episode follows the life and story of a different stranger. It takes place in their living room, in their private sanctuary, and it’s all centred around the elephant in the room.

We wanted to provide space for unique humans to reclaim ownership over whatever their narrative was that had been hijacked by society’s stigma.

Essentially, each episode follows a different lived experience...giving space for the storyteller to find reclamation, ownership, resilience, and pride in the fact that this ‘ugly’ exists in their experience, and to be liberated from it.

For viewers, it’s a chance to start stimulating thought around why we have been conditioned into thinking that pain and suffering is in fact ugly. It’s also collective grieving. It’s having somebody on screen talking in a visceral and intense way about an experience that has been incredibly hard and at times harrowing…and have people recognise it somewhere else. As a different story and different experience, but universal in nature.

The episodes so far have featured accounts about the lived experience of having an eating disorder, surviving rape, and living with a terminal illness. In their own living rooms, we see the storytellers being handed ownership, an invaluable process with seas of emotion. It is easy to say these things exist, but another to accept them as part of your own story.

According to Sofia, the biggest success to come from the project would be for those sitting in front of the camera to feel enriched, heard and honoured after sharing their stories.

Sofia: That (this experience) gives back what has been stolen from them. That it takes away all the shame and says “here is your authority to live your life as you please, ugly and all”.

I asked Sofia about the process of reclamation which The Elephant Room has offered to the storytellers.

Sofia: I’ve seen the reclaiming unfold before my very eyes. Reclaiming is when you’re no longer ashamed or afraid to exist within the ugly.

Reclaiming is sitting in the shame that has been unfairly projected onto those spaces, and leaning into it.

Everything falls down. All of the structures fall down. People can’t throw shame onto something if there’s nowhere for it to stick. This documentary series is about dismantling the walls that would otherwise have those things stick.

By allowing viewers and participants to connect over deeply personal, yet all too familiar experiences, this docuseries aims to dismantle the fear of vulnerability which Sofia credits to shame. Societal conditioning has led us to believe that our suffering is ugly, something to be buried and hidden.

Conversations which acknowledge the elephants in the room have the power to counter this narrative we have been fed. The series is a catalyst for viewers to experience a sense of belonging in knowing they are not alone in adversity, and strives to make people question why we refuse to see adversity as something which holds potency and beauty.

Sofia: When you start having these conversations, and start completely normalising and being receptive to things that are hard to talk about, it is amazing how quickly that space can chameleon its way into one of acceptance and celebration.

Sofia explained that in Western culture, we have been fed a fallacy. Suffering and mourning does not have to be a hidden ugly, and she described the way in which other cultures mourn in public and open ways.

It creates a cesspool of healing, and in a way I want The Elephant Room to do that- not to glorify it, but just to make real- and in that real, make beautiful.

The Elephant Room is changing the narrative before it has even been released. Those involved in its production have already seen the potential that just sitting and listening holds.

Sofia: In the middle of the interview it hits me, and it hits me usually when it hits them. They will be telling their story and you’ll see something click inside of them. Often they’ve realised that whatever their elephant in the room is, it comes from something much deeper than themselves.It comes from their environment or their upbringing, or intergenerational trauma, their history, often things inflicted on them.

When that happens in the room, everyone feels it. They’re letting light through.

The next steps for the series are to prepare for broadcast, and tell more stories which deserve to be told. For the production crew, this has been the most influential challenge. It speaks to the pitfalls of the creative industry in Australia, where artists and creatives are often expected to work for free. For projects like the Elephant Room, which hold so much power for positive change, this can be disheartening for directors and producers. It speaks to the quality of this series that Sofia already knows her years of effort have been worthwhile.

Sofia: I so fervently back the potential of what this can do, I’ve seen it in front of me. I’ve sat behind the camera as the director, watching on as my strangers transform in front of me. The process that they come to, with imposter syndrome and rage and anger and deep sadness, and you see it unfold in front of you, and you realise they’re healing.

Support The Elephant Room via donation here.

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