Our main objectives were method development and capacity building for arts educators and political educators (specifically: feminist adult educators and theatre pedagogues) around issues of gender-based violence (GBV) by 1) combining Shadow Theatre and Forum Theatre as a methodology for creating safer and braver spaces for dialogue and 2) including a trauma-aware approach of sex-positivity in adult education around GBV to create healthier relationships. We aimed to summarize the learnings in a cutting-edge manual. Capacity development among project partners’ staff should guarantee the new methodologie’s and manual’s sustainable promotion. Going beyond the original objectives, we aimed to queer the understanding of GBV. Going beyond violence of cis-men towards cis-women and also addressing violence from the mainstream against queer people and within queer communities. This emerged through honest and healthy dialogue about GBV and our work within marginalized queer communities. With the new methodologies we wanted to foster participatory citizen engagement (we explicitly include all people living within a territory, with and without legal citizenship) around the sensitive topic of GBV using creative and artistic tools for dialogue.
The partnership was formed between two (queer-)feminist community theatre organisations which identified the need to address gender-based violence (GBV) in adult arts education with a focus on a trauma-aware approach of sex-positivity, community care and self-love. GBV is a topic, which is often characterized as taboo. Therefore, we felt the need for creative, nourishing and healing ways for an open dialogue about it. Shadow Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) were identified as methodologies that, combined, have great potential to serve our queer and marginalized learning communities’ needs (who are often survivors) to open up on and address this sensitive topic. The project equipped our arts educators with tools to foster community dialogue on the issue and inspired them to create new methodologies together. Our organisations could embody their feminist working values and form a lasting transnational European partnership and a team of adult educators. By designing and disseminating a high-quality methodology, professionalisation processes and professional networks were fostered. We gained a European perspective on GBV and added a queer perspective to the discussion, which is often neglected by the wider public.