Author: Ewa Dubicka

 

Article – http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/powerful-art-exhibit-powerfully-answers-the-question-what-were-you-wearing_us_59baddd2e4b02da0e1405d2a

In the University of Kansas an art exhibition was curated called “What were you wearing”.

The exhibit, showcased 18 sexual harassment stories, with the outfit they were wearing at the time of their assault. The outfits were all very varied, from bikinis, t’shirts, jeans ect.

 

“What were you wearing?”

It’s a question people ask survivors of sexual violence all too often; a question wrought with victim-blaming and an implication that, maybe, the survivor could’ve prevented their assault if they had worn something less revealing, less sexy.  – (HuffingtonPost.com,2017). 

 

This particularly stood out to me, as it resonated with me that it shouldn’t matter how another human being is dressed, no form of dressing is ever an invitation to assault another human being sexually against their own will. This become a source of inspiration for the visuals for my video. The huge text throughout the visuals “THIS IS NOT AN INVITE’ and “SHE WAS NEVER ASKING FOR IT”, were influenced by the motivation and meaning behind this particular exhibition that I stumbled upon during my research.

 

My source of inspiration for this project is somewhat, to an extent, a sensitive issue – ‘Sexual harassment’.  The subject matter is something which normally isn’t spoken about or explored on a day to day basis, maybe being due to the fact that it’s almost a slightly ‘taboo’ issue. However, with the current boom in today’s social media, its become a topic which has been brought to the surface. The tremendous number of stories that have risen to be apparent was brought to my attention, as everyday.. a new story would appear on my phone across an array of different social media platforms. I began reading stories, articles, blog posts, interviews and youtube content by people effected. Being a woman, this all sparked a huge level of interest, after coming across so many shocking stories. However, after exploration, it was the number of ‘small’ stories that evoked emotion in me. Thus, I came to the conclusion that I wanted my video to have a purpose in society and to most importantly create change, and enlighten the viewers. I wanted my piece of work to be a form of activism, which led me to researching into art as a form of activism.

Through my research, I become aware how art can be an amazing way of provoking change. The video above states that activism in art causes “conversations to be sparked” and “controversy is sparked”, it can “enlighten” and most importantly to “educate”. Shannon Galphin, created a portable photography exhibition in open spaces around Afghanistan, she reinforces that art in war torn countries and places in severe distress is needed more so than in the safe western world and that art can be a powerful tool to send out messages or to make people feel a certain way. Her passion and remarkable work truly inspired me, to create a piece of art, that too, would hopefully make a change in a positive manner.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta8X3gqOw1I&t=144s

The media recently has been bombarded with sexual harassment stories from woman in the film industry in particular, which resulted in the formation of the #MeToo Campaign on social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. The astonishing amount of these stories taking a surface has been absolutely shocking. Being a woman myself, I can completely resonate with fortunately somewhat a lot lesser versions of sexual assault in a ‘verbal’ manner. This has been a huge inspiration for the sound for my project, as I wanted to create a sound that will be highly emotive on the matter and help to continue to create awareness on the situation. I wanted my sound to make the listener feel a certain type of way and to use it as an educational tool on the topic, to underpin how crucial it is to understand that sexual harassment is never justifiable.