À Bordeaux, un projet féministe et artistique pour conscientiser au harcèlement de rue
“Elle par’court” provides for the installation of three works of art in the city during the summer, created by women. Led by two volunteers in civic service, the project invites women to reinvest in public places and to raise public awareness of the problem of street harassment. Workshops to create the works will begin in May.
“Inviting women to reclaim public space through a feminist journey”: this is the ambition of the project led by Axelle Armary, 24, and Hanna Hulin Keller, 18, both in civic service in Bordeaux within the Unis-Cité association. Called “Elle par’court”, the project invites women to use art as a medium to discuss common experiences.
Through future works installed in the city, the project also aims to question the general public on the issue of street harassment. The initiative is inspired by “exploratory walks”, participatory urban planning tools that make it possible to assess the degree of insecurity of women in the public space in order to have developments assessed.
In Bordeaux, the will be a journey made up of three works, produced by residents during workshops, located in three separate locations and visible from June to August 2022. Thanks to a paper guide and QR codes, passers-by will be able to discover the journey and the project approach. Axelle Armary and Hanna Hulin Keller plan to install the works in places symptomatic of the “insecurity” experienced by women, whether it be day or night.
Avoidance strategy
Before embarking on the artistic project, Axelle Armory and Hanna Hulin Keller carried out a survey of 400 inhabitants of the Bordeaux metropolis:
“We did this survey to find out if they felt more insecure in certain places in the city. The places that have often been mentioned are La Victoire, the quays, Saint-Michel, the campus…”
From this pre-survey, Axelle Armary and Hanna Hulin Keller also note that “avoidance strategies” in the street, such as pretending to be on the phone or keeping your bunch of keys in your hand, are common to many women. :
“Women restrict their use of the city because of a feeling of insecurity and uninclusive street furniture. We talk a lot about the facts of aggression, but not about the permanent feeling of anguish that women feel when they are in the street. The project also aims to make people think, to raise awareness about these trivialized acts. »
Collective project
The duo launched a call for artists to find partners who could accompany them in the project. The collective of scenographers and architects Cmd+O is thus responsible for creating the structure of the future street furniture. Axelle Armary and Hanna Hulin Keller also responded to two calls for projects: “I take up the challenge” initiated by the City of Bordeaux, and “Young people in action” by the Department of Gironde.
The furniture created by the Cmd+O collective will serve as a support for creating artistic works during various workshops, as Hanna Hulin Keller explains:
“The heart of the initiative is to invite the inhabitants to create a work, to dialogue around a subject that we all know. With Axelle, we took training in Family Planning to learn how to lead discussion groups on the subject of gender-based and sexual violence. »
To finance the project, Axelle Armory and Hanna Hulin Keller launched a online crowdfunding. The latter must make it possible to acquire the wooden structures and the artistic material which will be used during the workshops. These should be in place by May.
Reinvest the city
“Elle par’court” provides single-sex workshops to allow women, or “people who identify as such”, to speak “more freely”, in a climate of trust. Because for Axelle Armory, the project must also be an opportunity for residents to discuss “common experiences”:
“The first workshop will allow us to get to know each other, to discuss the notion of insecurity with each person’s experience. The second workshop will begin the artistic part with initiations to painting, drawing… The idea is to outline the final work which will be installed in town. Finally, the participants will create the work imagined during the outdoor workshops. »
According to a Ipsos poll published in July 2020, 81% of women in France have already been victims of sexual harassment in public places. In Bordeaux, according to a survey conducted by three sociologists in the metropolis in 2016, 87.5% of women surveyed said they had suffered sexual or sexist harassment in the city.
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