Youth-led Perspectives on Combating Sexual Violence
Sexual violence as a global concern affects the lives of millions of girls and women. How girls and young women themselves see the issues is a critical feature of finding solutions. The images in this exhibition ‘speak back’ in a variety of ways to the experiences of girls and young women in their everyday lives and in so doing challenge the status quo. Most of the images were produced by girls and young women. Some of the images show them ‘in action’ actually creating the images. Other images produced by young men highlight the significance of voices of boys and young men as part of the solution. Brought together as part of the Circles Within Circles : Transnational Perspectives on Youth-led ‘From the Ground Up’ Approaches to Combating Sexual Violence project, the images were created by young people, primarily girls and young women, from 6 countries in both the Global North and Global South. The groups participating included Indigenous youth from Canada and South Africa, along with work produced by youth in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sweden and Russia. The work represents school, community and post-secondary settings, and draws on urban and rural experiences. What cuts across the work is the use of participatory arts-based methods such as photovoice, cellphilm production and other forms of art-making in expressing the concerns. Taken together the images provoke many questions. What can we learn from the collective voices of young people? How can looking across sites and across different country contexts deepen an understanding of the issues and the solutions? How can young people be at the centre of creating change?
Speaking Back is part of an international travelling exhibition aimed at supporting dialogue and action.
