Women Activists During the Covid-19 Crisis – Conversations on Arctivism

To celebrate York International Women’s Week work from women artist-activist collaborations in the Arctivism project have been brought together in an exhibition. Illustrations, embroidery, bitesize theatre, spoken word poetry, zines, photographs and performance by women in El Salvador, India, Latvia, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, Uganda and the USA provide a glimpse of how some women have experienced the Covid-19 crisis.

This event brings some of those women together to discuss their work and the role of art in social justice, civil engagement and feminist activism. There will an opportunity for questions at the end of the session.

Emilie Flower, CAHR Associate & freelance film artist

The Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) resident artist, Emilie Flower, will reflect on CAHR’s arts and human rights initiatives, in particular the Arctivism project which has funded activist-artist collaborations across the world responding to the outbreak of Covid-19 and its implications for human rights activism.

Tallulah Lines, Las Iluministas, Mexico, and exhibition curator

Tallulah will talk about the theme of care which threads through all of the pieces by the women in this exhibition and how it is integral to the everyday acts that do not necessarily grab headlines, but that keep us going now and give us hope for the future. She will also talk about the project she led in Mexico with Alicia Salgado – Las Iluministas – in which women used art to reflect on their experiences as artist-activists in a climate of increased risk.

Mariam Santamaría, Unmasking Our Stories, El Salvador

Mariam is from La Cachada Teatro, a Salvadoran theatre company with 10 years’ experience telling stories of violence, abuse and resistance through plays and theatre workshops. The Unmaksing Our Stories project collected testimonies from Salvadorans from stigmatised communities and then told their stories of life in the pandemic in a series of seven performances.

Nida Ansari & Pooja Dhingra, Compassion Contagion, India

The Compassion Contagion project created an online archive of stories, interviews, art, illustrations and graphic narratives to document acts of compassion and tell the story of how these experiences were fundamentally changing behaviour, shifting the narrative from despair to one of hope.

Contact organiser if you have any additional needs and they will do their best to help if possible.

Details of how to access the event will be sent out nearer the time.

Human Rights Defender Hub, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York

email: hrdhub@york.ac.uk