‘Feel what I feel’: making da(r)ta with teen girls for creative activisms on how sexual violence matters

Abstract

Inspired by feminist new materialist and posthuman activist philosophy, this paper speculates on what happens when data entangles with arts-based methodologies in a school-based participatory activist project with six teen girls (age 15) on gender-based and sexual violence. Mapping the journey of how data become da(r)ta and how da(r)ta become d/artaphacts, the paper follows how the Runway of Disrespect, the Shame Chain, the Ruler-Skirt and the Tagged Heart ripple through peer cultures, school assemblies and national policy landscapes. Each journey provides a small glimpse into how bodies, space, objects, affects and discourse ‘intra-act’ (Barad 2007) in dynamic assemblages to produce d/artaphacts crafted from and carrying experience. The paper concludes to consider the ethical-political affordances of how participatory arts-based methodologies and the im/personal vitality of objects (Bennett 2010) might support young people to safely and creatively communicate and potentially transform oppressive sexual cultures and practices.