ARTIVISM fuses art with activism and my research will contribute to the growing bed of creative work (music, dance and theatre performances, multimedia work, street art, compositions and songs) that aims to raise awareness of and help eliminate the worldwide oppression and violence towards women and girls.
Misogyny “has thrived on many different levels, from the loftiest philosophical plane in the works of Greek thinkers, who helped frame how Western society views the world, to the back streets of nineteenth century London”. The arts allow political action to become multisensorial, making important messages more colourful, memorable and approachable. Work in this field can tackle a huge problem such as sex slavery by transporting it and its accompaniment of statistical data accruing to the hundreds of thousands down to a human, understandable level so that it can be thought about and discussed.
My research will investigate interdisciplinary possibilities of composition as ARTIVISM by blending experimental composition with visual communication to highlight areas of oppression and violence. I will facilitate collaborative processes to engage with other art forms, both in socially engaged contexts and with artists in the research group CREATIE and draw inspiration from existing ARTIVISM and literature. The approaches of practitioners such as multi-national women’s group LADAMA, whose goal is to challenge expectations of women through music, will provide frameworks around which to shape my research. Analysis of research processes, performances, and collaborator/audience feedback will give the artistic community a furthered knowledge of effective compositional ARTIVISM. This will be backed by an output of new music created from translation processes of activist techniques ie visual art and demonstrations into sound.
