We believe that sharing is the way forward.
An Arts Council England grant was awarded to Molly Brown, an animator and filmmaker, for an arts based project that would work with women survivors of domestic violence and abuse. The collaboration aimed to better understand the impact of domestic abuse on mental health. The project sought to use co-production research methods that would culminate in animations designed to be watched and utilised by many people. The resulting animations offer an ongoing platform for sharing the women’s voices, raising awareness and challenging public perceptions.
When We Share was born from a research project, Disrupted Narratives, led by Professor Julie McGarry, Professor in Nursing and Gender Based Violence at the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The project was built to identify and acknowledge the difficulties women are confronted with when sharing experiences of trauma. The research was also in collaboration with Associate Professor, Dr Kathryn Hinsliff-Smith, Research Lead Leicester School of Nursing and Midwifery at De Montfort University. They wanted to challenge the dominant narratives - the language that has been used by others, often professionals, to describe, diminish and devalue women’s experiences.
Supporting survivors of domestic violence and abuse to share their voice.
Through a collaboration with JUNO Women’s Aid in Nottingham, we held a series of four workshops with women survivors of domestic violence and abuse. These were planned by Dawn Bowden, an experienced arts and theatre based workshop facilitator. Dawn carefully created a safe space for the women to engage in a series of activities such as clay modelling, poetry and purposeful crafts. Through these workshops we sensitively explored the relationships and experiences that the women have had with professionals and their communities since declaring their abuse.
Our project was based on existing research which included The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2022) which identified that 1 in 3 women (approximately 736 million women) will be subjected to violence and abuse by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner during their lifetime. This number has remained largely unchanged over the past decade. Violence and abuse pervades all aspects of a person’s life but the interwoven complexities surrounding the experience of violence and abuse and mental health remain poorly understood (Oram et al. 2017).
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