An Empty Place at the Table
By Kate Jackson
Social Work Today
Vol. 4, No. 6, Page 16

Devastated by a cluster of domestic violence-related homicides, one community creates a symbolic homage to the victims and their families.

To anyone who’s ever lost a loved one, the empty place at the table is among the most potent, poignant, and persistent reminders of loss and absence. This universally understood symbol of grief is at the heart of an exhibit and a documentary film that grieve the loss of women and children fallen by domestic violence and honor their lives.

A project of the Women’s Resource Center (WRC), a Scranton, PA, feminist organization dedicated to eradicating violence against women and children, An Empty Place at the Table is an exhibit created in 1993 that reminds viewers of the uniqueness of the individuals whose lives were ended at the hands of familiar batterers. The exhibit was conceived in the wake of the violent deaths of three individuals in Lackawanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania.

On July 24 of that year, a 7-year-old child became a casualty of a relationship that had soured. When Sheena Marie Jones’ mother demanded that her abusive boyfriend vacate the premises, the man promised revenge. His revenge was Sheena’s rape and murder. On August 8, Gordon Mashie—who on July 2 had been released from prison on $2,500 bail for raping his wife, Phyllis—returned despite a Protection from Abuse order and began stabbing Phyllis as his son watched. He stabbed her 191 times. A week later, Cindy Marshalek’s estranged husband murdered her after she filed for divorce. He killed himself the next day.

In reaction to this bloodshed, friends and family of the victims met with staff and volunteers of the WRC to talk about how they could respond to the tragedies. Later, the WRC’s executive director Peg Ruddy and a volunteer, Jane Kopas, began planting the seeds of the exhibit, discussing potential strategies for memorializing not only the three killed in the midsummer of 1993 but also other women who’d been killed in the four years previous. Influenced by Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party exhibit and the well-known Quilt Project commemorating lives lost to AIDS, Kopas and Ruddy conceived an exhibit of table settings unique to each individual memorialized that would acknowledge and celebrate their unique personalities. Family and friends of the victims worked with the staff to realize this vision, and the table was set, each place setting tailored to a particular individual and consisting of personal items. The exhibit premiered in October 1993 and has been offered by the WRC each October in commemoration of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Over the years, it has been widely emulated to broaden its reach and transmit its goals: to honor the victims, increase awareness of domestic violence, and influence social change.

To bring this tribute to an even greater audience, the WRC teamed with the United Studios of America (USA) of Dalton, PA, to coproduce a 26-minute documentary film about the Table exhibit. After securing a $25,000 grant from the Willary Foundation, the WRC turned to USA filmmakers Thomas M. Curra and Gregory Matkosky to launch the project. “The WRC was celebrating its 25th anniversary and was interested in doing a fund-raising film,” recalls Curra, the project’s coproducer, who realized as he listened to Ruddy and others that there could be something more to this than a fund-raising project.

Curra went to the Table exhibit and observed. “I actually stayed away from it for a while and watched from a distance. I noticed how people reacted to it and what kind of emotions it was bringing out, and then when I approached the table and got close, I was moved by its impact and by all the personal items it contained,” he says. Curra was convinced both that the documentary should be about the Table and that the project was entirely in line with what he and Matkosky did as filmmakers. “The fund-raising side of it was secondary. We were really more focused on elevating the Table to a national level through the art of filmmaking so people could embrace it as an icon for domestic violence,” he says.

“In short order, we took on the production because it had the potential to effect a social change regionally in northeastern Pennsylvania if not nationally or even internationally with the right development,” recalls Matkosky, creative director of the USA and the film’s writer and director. “This mission resonated with our company’s focus on producing socially conscious films that offer an audience more than just entertainment.”

According to Matkosky—who graduated with a master of fine arts degree in cinematography from the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film Studies in Los Angeles and has had an impressive career as a writer, cinematographer, and director of television and documentary film—several goals fueled the project. “One was to make a film that would provide the WRC with a powerful evergreen promotional and fund-raising resource,” he says. “Another was to produce a film that cinematically represented the women and children memorialized by the An Empty Place at the Table art exhibit in a spirit of reverence. A third was to create a film that could serve as a catalyst for social change.” Thus, he feels certain that the first two goals have been achieved. The USA and the WRC, he adds, are committed to realizing the third goal of sparking social change, whether on a regional or national level.

The making of the film was an extraordinary team endeavor involving intense interaction among filmmakers, the WRC, the loved ones of those lost to violence, the spirit of the victims, the narrator, and the audience. “We encouraged an active collaboration with the WRC, whose staff are not filmmakers by trade obviously, but who did possess insights that defined issues in a way that influenced how Thom and I rendered ideas and information cinematically,” says Matkosky.

The solemnity of the subject matter dictated a careful approach. “We understood we were going to enter very private spaces of surviving family members,” he says. “The production at all times had to maintain a dignity and sensitivity for them as well as their lost loved ones. The most significant challenge of the product, he observes, was gaining the trust of the WRC and the family members. While our reputation as filmmakers and as members of the community were unimpeachable, nonetheless we were men, working with people who have a healthy skepticism about men. I think in the beginning the WRC wasn’t sure we could articulate a feminist vision. Once this trust was established, as with most relationships, the process became enlightening for all parties.”

In line with its mission to spark social change, the filmmakers and the WRC sought a narrator who would provide the appropriate tone and timbre. Edie Greenspun Camel, education program coordinator of the WRC, recalls, “We were looking for someone who was a known political activist, someone who would support our cause because they were familiar with it or had worked with violence against women or in the peace movement.”

In addition, she says, it was important that the voice of the project belong to a trusted figure that appealed to people of all ages. “We were looking for someone who could span generations. Susan Sarandon appeared to be the perfect candidate. Not only was she willing and available, she graciously donated her time and offered valuable perspective.” Although the WRC offered her a small honorarium, the actress insisted that it be put back into the organization to support its work.

The film premiered on October 2, 2003, to an audience of 800. “The response,” says Curra, “was overwhelming. It resonated in a big way.” Since then, Camel has heard only accolades. “I can’t ever remember someone thinking that this was not a good idea or that it was overemphasized, overdone, or exploitive. Instead, the response to the film, like that to the exhibit,” she says, “has been overwhelmingly positive. People are visibly moved when they see the Table. You can just read it on their faces.”

When the WRC tours with the Table or the film, viewers are invited to comment in a guest book. “If one word is consistent within those comments, it’s ‘powerful’,” Camel says. Sometimes viewers are inspired to share with the staff their own memories. “Often people approach us and want to talk about people they may have known.” There seems to be an almost universal reaction. “There’s always something on the table that reminds the viewers of a personal relationship they had with someone or of a loved one that they lost.”

Matkosky is hopeful that the film will nurture new funding resources for the WRC so it can continue its commitment to activism in an era of funding cutbacks. “I hope the film helps surviving family members feel a little more comfort through the pain they live with, knowing the death of their loved ones may sow hope for significant social change,” he says.

One of the means by which social workers can help the WRC catalyze change and rally advocacy is by bringing the film or exhibit to their area, recreating the exhibit in their geographic location, or creating a similar project with matching goals. To that end, the WRC has created a manual for the exhibit—essentially a handbook to guide others in the creation of like projects—and a users’ guide for the film. “Whether they’re advocates in domestic violence centers, educators, or members of a Kiwanis club that wants to present the film at their meeting, the users’ guide will accompany the film,” says Camel. It contains a brief history of the film and the Table exhibit and has a comprehensive set of talking points or questions that can be raised after the showing of the film. The guide provides general information, but special inserts are planned that will be targeted to specific types of professionals—for example, law enforcement, healthcare, college, and social workers. Using these inserts, discussion points and questions can be keyed to the individual professionals and audiences to which they present the film.

Social workers and others will soon be able to purchase the film directly from the WRC, and the agency is hoping to have price lists and order forms bundled into materials of other organizations to reach a wider organization. “Materials from Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, for example, reach a lot of different agencies, as do those of the national coalitions,” says Camel. “We’re trying to get our material into their catalogs so they can be distributed along with information about items sold by those agencies.” The local public television station has expressed an interest in broadcasting the film, and the WRC is investigating the possibility of creating, with the USA, a longer format film to be aired on another television outlet.

Social Workers Carrying the Message
People who work with the community don’t always know they’re working with battered women, says Camel. A social worker, for example, may be seeing a client for other reasons and the issue of battering isn’t raised. “One of the things we hope to bring forth with the film and then with the users’ guide and the discussion is the idea that any individual that you work with in the normal course of your day could be a victim of intimate violence,” she says.

Camel hopes the film and discussion of it will prompt social workers and others to explore whether or not a client feels safe at home. “Asking those kinds of questions might open you up to information that you might otherwise not have gotten.” If the client indicates that she is not safe at home, the social worker can then approach it from a social work position and be educated enough to provide clients with resources in the community, such as the local women’s resource center. In this way, says Camel, social workers in their daily work can be part of the support system for battered women even though that might not have been the primary reason for working with those clients.

This awareness of and alertness to domestic violence is particularly important, she says, for social workers in school settings. “Even though the film was geared to adult relationships, high school is just awash with relationships that are violent,” Camel says. Teenagers, she suggests, because they’re young and lacking life experience, may think violence is a normal part of relationships. Young men may think it’s their role and that it’s acceptable to control their girlfriends. Social workers in schools, therefore, “should especially be aware of the indications and red flags of dating violence and controlling behavior.”

Says Curra, “It was a great experience for me and Greg on multiple levels, but more important, it enlisted two more advocates.” Social workers who join the fight against domestic violence have in the work of the USA and the WRC a resource by which to enlarge their own advocacy efforts. Matkosky was inspired not only by his subject but also by those committed to making change. “Documentary film is an interesting job because in researching you learn so much about so many different things,” he says. “What impressed me most, though, was in working with such dedicated people like those at the WRC and knowing that there are many others in the world who work so anonymously to make a difference in the lives of people who need help. I’ll always remember that about making this film.”

— Kate Jackson is a staff writer for Social Work Today.