Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence

Shameless! Festivals of Activism Against Sexual Violence was a Wellcome Trust-funded public engagement initiative co-created by The Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters (SHaME) Project at Birkbeck, University of London, and gender equity charity - The WOW Foundation, which used activism, art, and academic research to challenge harmful stereotypes about sexual violence through a one-day festival format.

The Festival format, developed by WOW and SHaME inspired action, honoured the multi-faceted work of survivor-activists, and was designed to be a joyful, invigorating experience for festival-goers and speakers alike, despite the gravity of the topic.

The first Shameless! Festival was held in London in 2021, followed by a second festival, Ecoar!, In Rio de Janeiro in 2022. At a stall at NCCPE's Engage conference in 2023, we shared information about how the festivals were co-produced in an inclusive and ethical way, which was aimed at empowering audiences, contributors, and colleagues.

It is also important to note that the Engage stall itself did not discuss sexual violence, but rather focused on details about the festival model and the collaboration that co-produced it.

Purpose

The purpose of the Shameless! Festivals was to convene a space and bring together people who were working on, and invested in, the topic of sexual violence, and the general public,- especially those who may not ordinarily cross paths with one another - to help confront and change attitudes to sexual violence.

The co-production team (SHaME and WOW) recognised that often people are navigating the aftermaths of sexual violence and trauma in isolated and individualised ways. The festival sought to create a space where people could truly feel that others present were also working towards the same goal - whether in a professional or personal capacity: to challenge stigma surrounding sexual violence and collectively imagine a rape-free world.

The festivals brought together academics, activists, artists, survivors, medical practitioners, and public audiences to share space and converse. Through talks, performances, creative workshops, how-to clinics, wellness spaces, support services, and counsellors provided on site, a level of accessibility was achieved that drew all these people in. Further, the festival format- as opposed to a conference or academic space- was used to co-create a sense of community and collective joy and lightness, to encourage people to engage and to ensure that everyone felt welcome to attend.

Background

Tarana Burke, ‘me too’ founding activist, was an inspiration for this project in the context of her activism against sexual violence and her commitment to community organising. SHaME was an interdisciplinary research hub sitting at the intersection of medicine, psychiatry and sexual violence. The WOW Foundation is a global movement and gender equity charity that produce WOW - Women of the World Festivals - and events in more than 45 locations, celebrating women, girls and non-binary people across the world and tackling the issues they face.

CEO and Founder of WOW, Jude Kelly, and SHaME’s Principal Investigator, historian Joanna Bourke, recognised that both SHaME and WOW were deeply invested in mapping the way to a rape-free world. Bourke and Kelly then sparked a conversation between teams at both organisations about how to formalise a partnership and build a scalable festival model focused on ‘activism against sexual violence.’ Dr. Rhea Sookdeosingh, Public Engagement and Events Lead at SHaME, began working with senior WOW team members Sabeena Akhtar, Shereen Perera and the wider WOW team to take this idea from seed to proposal. Funding from the Wellcome Trust supported the team in bringing their idea to life.

Our Approach

There were three key elements needed to implement The Shameless! Festival:

Using a classic public engagement approach in collaborations and partnership working

It was essential to co-create a space for The SHaME Project team to bring their research expertise and the WOW team to bring their expertise in arts programming and working with grassroots communities of a variety of backgrounds, to co-create something special that neither would/could create on their own. This enabled the combining of arts and academic approaches towards co-creating the Shameless! Festival programme.

Researchers utilised urgent questions from their research, and models from past public engagement activities, while the WOW team drew on emergent and more nuanced themes arising from previous WOW Festivals, eg taking into account the experience of sexual violence through various lenses such as race, poverty and the unique experiences of ex-prisoners and undocumented women. WOW also consulted and worked with survivors and artists with whom they already had long-established, long-nurtured relationships.

Programming for the festivals was achieved through ‘call outs’ (deliberately avoiding academic terminology like ‘call for papers’), as well as classic curatorial approaches to attract the widest talent of contributors and WOW’s unique Think In format which involved online and in-person consultation with a variety of contributors of all backgrounds.

Interdisciplinary methods meant that people from both the academic and arts sector backgrounds, as well as practitioners and survivors, saw the festival as an inclusive and open platform where they could share their talents. Venue selection was also determined by community engagement practice. It was important that the space felt accessible to all communities and people and in no way exclusionary or too corporate or academic in feel.

Taking a survivor-centred approach from start to finish

Sessions were curated by WOW's Head of Programmes Sabeena Akhtar, who spent dedicated time working with survivors to hear their stories, make sure their voices were heard, and that their sessions were designed to create the impact they wanted for the specific communities liaised with.

The curation process was fed into by survivors, taking into account the various intersections of their identity and how it impacted their experiences of being survivors, being believed, or given a platform. Sabeena also liaised with the SHAME Team academics, artists, and sexual health and violence professionals to inform sessions.

The curation and programming process was much longer than traditional festival programming as significant time was spent with survivors to hear their stories and concerns, hold space for their fears, and develop sessions with them so as not to feel extractive or voyeuristic, but rather collaborative.

Training and development opportunities were also available after the festival. Additionally, all contributors were remunerated to honour their labour. The delivery team also clearly communicated to survivors that there wasn’t an expectation for them to lay bare their stories on stage for the audience's benefit, ensuring that they had agency over how much they shared.

Prioritising safeguarding

All staff from both teams undertook bespoke safeguarding and disclosure training from The Survivors Trust, and co-created a tailored Code of Conduct, disclosure procedure, and identified a point person. Safeguarding was a fundamental aspect of the festival and a suite of support was available at the festival and beyond.

Led by Senior Producer, Shereen Perera, The WOW team developed a festival specific safeguarding toolkit, code of conduct, therapist-led support, safe spaces, and trauma-informed art activations. This ranged from 'light touch' approaches such as reminding attendees that they're welcome to leave sessions whenever they needed to take a break, have a drink of water, call a trusted friend, etc, to dedicated quiet spaces, attending therapists on-call throughout the festival, and a resource and information stand from The Survivors Trust located in the main hall.

The WOW Team also arranged for The Survivors Trust to extend their call line operating hours for the festival weekend so that wraparound care would be available if needed. Further, the programming team included sessions on healing, sessions with therapists holding space for those feeling triggered - which involved grounding exercises within the panel session and closed trauma-informed creative writing workshops led by survivors to help create healthy outlets and coping mechanisms to deal with difficult conversations.

Session curation that balanced lighter and heavier conversations was also part of the safeguarding plan so survivors and participants had room for joy and laughter as part of the Shameless! experience.

A Safeguarding Statement was provided at the time of booking to prepare audiences for what to expect on the day, and it was accessible via QR code on the day of the festival.

Evaluation

The delivery team used surveys to gain audience feedback on the day and afterwards, whilst WOW had additional evaluation based on a postcard model available on stands. Further, feedback was obtained from contributors who ran sessions, via surveys and semi-structured interviews. And lastly, the wider team of partners engaged in a formal debrief to conduct evaluation. The Shameless! Festival webpage has numerous blog posts which capture some glimpses of the festival’s impact.

Lessons Learned

All survivors are unique

It is very important for people to know that survivors are not a monolith; they make sense of their experience in different ways. Still, all their stories matter. This is one of the reasons why the festival model worked, because it brought a diverse range of voices together.

Safeguarding is key

Safeguarding and ethics focuses on keeping people safe and ensuring they’re supported in the moment; but a follow on or signposting is crucial. When people are safe and supported they can bring their entire selves into the space and share their knowledge and ideas and wisdom. This applies to both the delivery team, and audiences/attendees. When mechanisms are effectively put in place to support people, these allow flourishing and engagement, and seems to enable people to encourage others to flourish and engage as well; an ecosystem of support is co-created.

Arts organisations bring a wealth of benefits

Arts organisations bring a wealth of experience and expertise especially regarding reaching audiences, creating diverse and inclusive spaces, and creating an atmosphere of optimism and empowerment even, and especially, for tackling difficult subjects. It’s important to proactively seek out these arts organisations, outside academia, to partner and co-produce with. Academics also bring a wealth of knowledge, useful frameworks and teaching experience which can really strengthen the delivery of creative workshops. In fact, some of the most creative workshops at The Shameless! Festival in London were led by academics from the SHaME team, as well as from other universities. This project was really greater than the sum of its parts. A noteworthy point of advice is to get university buy-in, from management levels, as early as possible to activate a smooth flow in operations.

Survivors are not a monolith; they make sense of their experience in different ways. Still, all their stories matter. This is one of the reasons why the festival model worked, because it brought a diverse range of voices together.

Legacy

The Shameless! Festival has a three-pronged legacy:

A festival model which is scalable, transferrable, and can be adapted to different geographical and political contexts. This provides a tried-and-tested framework for such festivals to be run locally and globally. Notably, a second Shameless! Festival - called Ecoar!- was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2022 led by women from the Marè Favela, Rio.
A major accomplishment of the festival was bringing together people working on sexual violence from different backgrounds - activism and advocacy, law, medicine, academia, the arts - who never would have met, and provided the opportunity to meet, share ideas, and chart new paths forward. As a result, the festival started an urgent conversation about sexual violence that the delivery team and attendees can take forward within their own collaborations. Peer-to-peer support groups were also set up by some people who met one another at the festival.
Video and audio content produced from the festival is available online; these can be used individually or collectively to prompt conversations, and as a teaching resource. Additionally, a Shameless! Festival Toolkit has also been published to support people towards creating their own initiatives on how to have difficult but necessary conversations.

History Investigators creative workshop by Dr Ruth Beecher from SHaME

Resources

Shameless! Festivals were a Wellcome Trust-funded initiative, co-produced by The SHaME Project at Birkbeck, University of London, and The WOW Foundation who produce WOW - Women of the World Festivals.

Additionally, the festival itself included survivors, high profile speakers, performances by artists, poets, and musicians, and researchers and medical professionals.

Find out more and get in touch

Shameless page on the SHaME website

Shameless Youtube Playlist

Shameless Voices from Festival Podcast

Shameless Festival Brochure

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