In this project, I explored a new form of art. Artivism. I researched and experimented with how I could use my art in an activist project focused on women’s safety. I first conducted a literature review of writers, philosophers, and other relevant sources. Through interviews and voice recordings, I was able to gather firsthand experiences from women and men. Through artistic research, experimentation, and reflection, I was able to test my project and determine whether it had the impact I was seeking. 

The final product went through many different versions and, based on the findings from those, evolved into this final product. In a long musical piece, you hear various stories from women; quotes from the interviews with men are incorporated into the music. On screens, you see an artistic representation of women and men, with text accompanying the music displayed on the center screen. The project is intended to offer different perspectives and create space for conversations on this topic. 

Micro-society

My art has served as a benchmark for me, a way to demonstrate my skills as an artist. New skills I developed during this master’s program included learning new software programs such as Blender, Unity, and TouchDesigner. Knowing how to use these programs makes me more interesting as an artist, and as a result, I wanted to create every project to the best of my ability. In this project, “Through Medusa’s Eyes,” I had a different goal. My goal as an artist was no longer to showcase my skills as impressively as possible, but to find an artistic way to convey an activist message to my audience. Through this project, I learned the difference between using art to raise awareness and using it to spur my audience to action. In my previous projects on mental health, I aimed to provide my audience with recognition and insight, so my art simply needed to reflect the issue it addressed. Through the books The Politics of Affect (Massumi, n.d.) and Trust: Building on the Cultural Commons (2024) by Pascal Gielen, I learned that artivism revolves around creating a new micro-society within art. A micro-society in art means engaging the audience in a new way of thinking and interacting through your art. For me, the micro-society meant the use of different perspectives. In my social circles, the topic of safety was widely discussed, but in conversations I discovered that men were still surprised by the individual experiences. I therefore wanted to create a space where women’s stories could be shared, and men could share their own stories and reactions. This interaction, and eventually change, is the micro society I aim to create with my project.

Shifting from awareness to artivism

For me, it was a difficult journey to find the balance between focusing on the art and focusing on the subject. In my sketches, you can also see how my project gradually shifted from symbolism to a literal representation. By constantly sharing work-in-progress, I gathered a great deal of feedback that guided me toward this final result. I started this project with the goal of raising awareness among my audience. At first, men didn’t really play a role in my project, but after many conversations about impact, I realized that I wanted to achieve a specific goal with my project. Based on my experience that many men never talk about safety and what it means to them, and with the aim of bringing about change, my project shifted from raising awareness to activism. 

Future

If I were to get more involved in activism, I would like to explore it even further. This project evolved from raising awareness to activism, but I would be curious to see what I would create if that had been my intention from the start. I also see this as a potential direction on which to base my artistic practice. Joining an art collective is a career goal of mine, but I would also be open to joining an organization that creates projects focused on women’s safety, for example.