Beyond the mask
During the last three months of 2013, we worked to prepare and run our Beyond the Mask: 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence exhibition.
To do this, we worked with Paws for Kids, the council’s Public Health Team, the Octagon Theatre and Fortalice to raise awareness of support services, breakdown barriers to getting this support, challenge the taboo nature of gender violence and show the solidarity of women in Bolton and further afield. Women worked together to create masks that symbolised the hidden aspect to gender violence and the many faces that women have to wear to protect themselves.
The Beyond the Mask exhibition was set up in a temporary gallery space in a charity shop and some of the women involved in the project took up volunteering roles in the shop over the 16 day period. 190 women made masks, eight women got involved in creative writing workshops (one had her story published), 13 women went on personal safety training, 25 women took part in a self-esteem workshop and 45 women joined in a Bolton town centre flash mob to mark the event.
The women said they felt a sense of pride and raised confidence. In addition, some were able to get further support, others have gone on to longer term volunteering posts and all were exhilarated by being part of a collective action.