Net art e igualdade de Género : cocriação com mulheres de casas de abrigo

Abstract

The central objective of this exploratory research is to analyse how the community art practice of net art can have a social function as a tool for empowerment, self-esteem and identity, using an action methodology (action research) art based (arts-based research) through the creation, production and dissemination of practical artistic projects (project-based research), and having as a case study women from shelters that are victims of domestic violence. Domestic violence against women is an established reality in Portugal, having reached a truly shocking number of feminicides in the last years. These abusive acts happen mostly in the private sphere, in intimate and family relationships, being carried out mainly by partners and ex-partners and are based on inequality and gender stereotypes. Having the Internet emerged in the mid 1990's, being since the last decade a mass communication medium, and presenting an enormous potential that has since then been explored by artists, we consider the Internet an ideal space for the creation and dissemination of projects with Women from Shelter Homes, the case study of this research. The artistic practice that is sought in this project focuses on the creative processes rather than the final artistic object, being inheritor of artists such as Mierle Laderman Ukeles, George Maciunas and Joseph Beuys who linked art to new dimensions, relations and political, social, and democratic meanings, an art that can represent us collectively. Throughout the research, net art projects will be carried out in co-creative laboratories with women from shelters, to consolidate their self-esteem and promote their self-sufficiency, capacity for change and social reinsertion. We do not claim that participative artistic practice is a solution to such a complex problem as domestic violence, but we believe that it can be one of the contributions to its resolution