Ariane Wilson

5.6 Fostering Agency Beyond Digital Territories: Empowering Youth with Feminist Art Pedagogy to End Gender-Based Violence (Paper)

Ariane Wilson – University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Annik Bilodeau – University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Abstract:

In the past two decades, art has increasingly been deployed online to bring attention to the epidemic rates at which women, girls, and gender-diverse people are murdered because of their gender identities. Indeed, digital media has both expanded the reach and amplified the impact of this political expression, while also facilitating the forming of unexpected transcontinental relationships shaped by the shared goal of ending this violence. Leveraging a framework for recognizing students as collaborators with educators, we examine the social impact of a classroom activity where US-based students create artworks for a social media account that memorializes victims of femicide, primarily in Mexico. Students aged 12 to 14 practice “necroresistance” (Rodríguez Madera) through portraiture, bridging their American experience with that of grassroots feminist activists in Latin America. We argue that this unprecedented partnership is an exercise in recognition-based social justice (Fraser). The agency of the students is validated when they are invited to take action by honouring victims of femicide. This, in turn, empowers them to become emotionally and artistically engaged as global advocates for gender equality beyond the borders of their classroom. We borrow the concepts of “solo dance” and “co-choreographies” (Anttila) to describe how this process encourages students to explore their inner territories, and assess and broaden their value systems. Through a cascade of co-choreographies enabled by modern technology, students become part of an international movement for social justice and anchor themselves as both producers and receivers of art refusing gender-based violence. With the hope of inspiring educators to pursue similar goals in their classrooms, we provide guidelines for implementation. Disrupting the status quo that places the value of a life on a hierarchy according to gender, race, class, and more, requires that we call on feminist art pedagogy and recognize students as agents of change.