She built the Australian Femicide Map, an interactive map to serve as a memorial remembering Australian women and children who have lost their lives to all forms of violence or neglect regardless of the perpetrator’s gender or their relationship to the victim.
Every heart represents a woman or a child lost to violence: hover above any heart and the story of a life cut too short will be revealed. There are currently 1665 hearts making it the saddest map of Australia you will ever see.
“We have chosen to give no start or end date for this ongoing collection of photographs and stories,” Moody says.
The memorial and map are the only ones of their type in Australia and both exist to honour and remember those who deserved to live long and happy lives but were never given the chance. The map has been viewed over 330,000 times.
“This is not a statistic-based map,” Moody says. “It is a journalism-based story-driven project with every heart representing a woman or child lost to violence.Victims are still being added to the Map. It is far from finished.”
It is a forum that shows where femicides and child killings are occurring while sharing information about the victims’ deaths. All of the information is publicly available and the material is sourced from coroner’s reports, media stories, police and family and friends of victims. Where possible Moody works with families so they know their loved ones are included.
Moody told Vice earlier this year: “I like to think that the Map is an emotive view of the impact violence has on our community.”
It includes all of the stories from another project Moody leads, The RED HEART Campaign’s Memorial to Women and Children Lost to Violence.
She is being supported in the project by journalist Katherine Benson. If you would like to learn more or support this project there are details here.
If you are in Australia and experiencing violence, please call 1800 RESPECT for support.