For more information and to view the digital space: artmattersnow.org.uk/virtual-tour-spaces-of-consent
ARTIST STATEMENT
Our submission is an ongoing (2019 on) arts and research project with Newcastle University UK, researcher Dr Tina Sikka, artist Lady Kitt, and representatives from women’s rights/ restorative justice activist groups, organisations and charities around the UK.
Using collaborative creativity as a connecting activity, the artistic team has been delivering a series of workshops leading to the presentation of a co-created digital space presenting creative responses to, and dialogues about, how organisations can collaboratively make and embed safer spaces policies, procedures and cultures.
The digital space can be viewed here: https://artmattersnow.org.uk/virtual-tour-spaces-of-consent/
Tools and exercises for developing policy related to this project, and other policy change through collaborative creativity, can be found here: https://www.lladykitt.com/enshrine
The project is now developing to work specifically in collaboration with victim-survivors of sexual violence, generating:
- Creative responses to, and dialogues about, imagined futures of restorative justice
- Creative activities / exercise (for a policy change tool kit) for organisational / institutional settings to support exploration of structural, behavioural and cultural changes which can remove barriers to alternative forms of justice
The theme “Justice Recitations” is used a starting point for creative activity. Using the definition of Recitations as “acts or instances of reading or repeating aloud, especially publicly”. The creative activities offer opportunities to make creative declarations about how victim-survivors of sexual violence define justice and alternatives they envision to the current system. Through the creative elements of the project, the intention is also for institutional partners involved to gain confidence in repeatedly making loud, visible and public their commitment to change.
The “Justice Recitations” (and /or other creative responses) will be presented as part of:
- A physical installation in Newcastle University
- A participatory digital space
- Creative activities / exercises as part of a tool kit for organisations
