On the 3rd and 4th of Jan. 2012 hosted by the Frauen Büro we explored what it means to be a girl in a two-day workshop.
The
first day was filled with structured activities, the second with their
own creative output. The presentation slides above reveal what we have
explored (please press pause to linger on each slide or fast forward to
see the comprehensive view.
We focused on incredible
women throughout history. By using a time-line starting from Cleopatra
to present day we explored women that used their skills and abilities to
take things further for themselves and the world at large. Interesting
Austrian women include the writer Ruth Maier who was captured by the
Nazis; Therese Schlesinger-Eckstein a strong political activist and Ida
Pfeiffer who traveled the world twice (you can see pictures of these
women in the presentation). Amazing girls from present day include
Thandiwe Chama and Mayra Avellar Neves from Brazil who fought for the
right to education in their own cities despite adversity such as
violence and aids as well as Tilly Smith who demonstrated how important
education is by saving people lives by recognising a Tsunami was coming
(each of these you can see in the presentation ).
By
using methods such as photo and object elicitation we were able to
explore the relationship between the girls values and themselves. This
enabled them to connect with each other through their values, therefore
exploring deeper the relationships with themselves and each other that
are not based on assumptions and appearances alone.
To
build trust we worked with Augusto Boal`s, Games for Actors and
Non-Actors that opened up their senses to each other and helped to build
a community spirit between the girls whilst allowing them to still keep
their individuality. This really expressed their diversity in a
collective. We explored media messages coming directly from the media
campaigns themselves, using stickers that expressed "Girl Respect" or
"Girl Disrespect". So the girls had to choose in their groups what
images we embracing multi-dimensional representations of girls and what
were crude and sexualised images.
We then explored the history of the women`s vote, across diverse countries across the world from New Zealand to Oman.
The
girls were able to see visually on this time-line that they had helped
to put together that New Zealand had women`s vote over 100 years ago
whilst in Oman women had only got the right to vote since 2003. We then
linked this activity to their own campaign. They picked a country that
had been explored in the time-line and devised a campaign of what they
would change if they were the mayor of a town in that country.
One
group picked Oman, mainly because in the previous activity they had
learned that women had only just got the vote and so they wanted to
introduce more women`s rights and equality.
Each group
delivered their campaign to the rest of the group and each group voted
for or against in a democratic process. Proposals that were included in
the campaigns were: more health services, more services that tackled
violence and more informal educational programs provided by the town.
On
the final day the girls explored had more chance to create their own
interpretations of the previous days activities. A couple of groups
chose to do a magazine. The content of these Zine`s varied. There was a
Professions Zine, based on what they had wanted to do in 20 years time
and exploring women`s professions in their immediate surroundings
including the Frauen Büro.
Another zine focused on the
history of Salzburg then and now. Another Zine explored issues such as
how to deal with trauma in war, friendship and a comedy theatre piece
that one of the other groups were exploring. Another group presented
what was had done over the past two days, reflecting on what they had
learned (See the presentation above).
The other groups
did performance pieces. One was a comedy called the Star Museum took an
ironic look at Stardom for Teens by playing people such as Justin
Biber, but also exploring their own professions within that, since one
of them wanted to be a museum director, another an artist, a journalist
photographer and a singer.
This was a fascinating
double exploration at both the consumer and fame saturated landscape
that was being channeled out to them but also their chance to look at
their own roles within that relating to what they wanted to do 20 years
into the future.
The
final group explored their professions 20 years in the future by
creating a "Who Done It"? detective story where they all got to play out
their own professions whilst giving an interactive detective story to
the audience. They used the influences of exploring interesting women
through history and critiquing the media from the first day to create
their own performances revealing their opinions on the second day.
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