16 DAYS OF RADICAL DIGITAL ACTIVISM

Original article has been previously published on our website

NEoN has been supporting 2022 16 days of Activism campaign by presenting work and creative practices that use digital tools or comment on today’s complex digital relationships.

As part of the 16 days of activism, we ran a workshop on Radical Digital Activism, where artist and illustrator Majsko Sekula worked with the community to create campaign-style zines and posters that explored care, action and change in our digital lives. Majsko is a Dundee-based artist specialising in illustration, storytelling and zine making. They are interested in ways of connecting visual arts and creativity with topics of LGBTQ representation and feminism.

“16 Days Of…” is a zine made as a part of our Zine Making Workshop on Saturday, 3rd December. During the workshop, participants were asked to create a visual artwork responding to the 16 Days campaign, feminism, and issues of GBV. The artworks were then collected, scanned, adjusted digitally and put together into what you can now see- a collective zine where together we call upon the end of violence against women and girls. “16 Days Of…” is available digitally as a low-res PDF and print.

We also invited Dundee-based activists to contribute to this campaign by writing an article about their stories, their jobs or their own campaigns.

Dana’s blog piece talks about gender-based violence and the launch of the website on her work to help make the invisible seen. Dana Leslie is a Fine Arts graduate of the University of Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and was named the Global Winner in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2022, the world’s largest academic awards programme that recognises top undergraduate work.

Another article by Bea, our own Freelance Accessibility Officer, wrote about Digital care in the realm of consent. Beatrix Livesey-Stephens (she/her) is an MPhil Game Studies student at Abertay, where she is investigating psychological safety and consent in roleplaying games, both online and offline.

Diana Grigorescu tells us, "I made a zine!" called Bursting At The Seams. Inspired by personal experiences with harassment, gender norms, perceived ugliness, misogyny, refusal to perform femininity, and their impact on mental health.

Cielito Saravia is a Co-Founder of the InternetBolivia.org Foundation, where they carried out workshops and personal assessments regarding online gendered violence (OGV). They are an Activist for digital accountability. Cielito's article focused on holistics and digital security.

On the 7th of December 2022, we supported Dundee International Women's Centre Social Takeover, under #16daysofactivism #radicaldigitalactivism and had Chloe from DIWC tell us about their great work.

Tia C. is an ethical hacking graduate from Abertay University and speaks about tech facilitated sexual violence. She is passionate about creating accessible forms of education and teaching people to be safe online. For more information about Tia, the honours project and dissertation, go here to read more.

Thank you to all involved.

Many amazing things happened across Dundee and the world to raise awareness. So continue to UNITE! with us and call for eliminating digital bias and online violence against women and girls.

Gender-Based Violence is not a women's problem... It's a HUMAN problem.

NOTES:

16 Days is an international campaign to challenge violence against women and girls. The campaign runs every year from 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day. This year's theme is 16 Days of Activism. The Global 16 Days Campaign, launched by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) and feminists from around the world at the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991, has been used worldwide to call for the elimination of gender-based violence (GBV).

Services available to women in Dundee:

Violence Against Women Services for Vulnerable Women Booklet 2022

Gender-Based violence refers to harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender. It is rooted in gender inequality, power abuse, and harmful norms.

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a serious violation of human rights and a life-threatening health and protection issue. It is estimated that one in three women will experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime. During displacement and times of crisis, the threat of GBV significantly increases for women and girls.

https://www.unhcr.org/gender-based-violence.html