Making Art, Making Media, Making Change

This science communication project aimed at opening empowering perspectives and spaces for young people, especially girls and young women, as active producers of culture and media, and to initiate critical thinking about power structures and social relations. Participants were introduced to alternative culture and media production with feminist and antiracist perspectives in the context of a participatory culture. The project is based on the two research projects "Feminist Media Production in Europe" and "Young women as creators of new cultural spaces," as well as the web platform "Grassroots Feminism. The young people, between twelve and twenty-six years old, became active in cultural and media production. This gave them the possibility to represent themselves in diverse ways while also questioning social structures and roles. Participants discussed and experimented with the critical potential of comics, zines, and Radical Crafting (an activist and experimental approach to crafting) at 27 workshops led by artists, cultural and media producers in schools throughout Austria and at youth and girls centers; and within a Grrrls Camp in Salzburg. For mediation purposes, a "Do-It-Yourself, Do-It-Together! Toolbox" containing various material has been developed and is available on a long-term basis, free of charge to an interested public (youth centers, schools etc.). A mobile archive of feminist alternative media and cultural production has been established to accompany the workshops. In addition, a feminist zine archive has been set up at the University of Salzburg (gendup, Zentrum für Gender Studies und Frauenförderung). The results of the project and the workshops were presented in a final exhibition. Project website: www.makingart.at Term: 01.03.2014 - 30.09.2015 Team: Elke Zobl (project leader), Ricarda Drüeke, Stefanie Grünangerl Cooperation partners: Carmen Mörsch (Institute for Art Education - Zürcher Hochschule der Künste), Elke Smodics (Büro trafo.K, Wien), Stephanie Müller (artist, Munich), Ka Schmitz (comic artist, Darmstadt), Teresa Lugstein (make it - Büro für Mädchenförderung des Landes Salzburg), Alexandra Schmidt (Frauenbüro der Stadt Salzburg), Mona-Net: Mädchen Online Netzwerk Austria, gendup - Zentrum für Gender Studies und Frauenförderung der Universität Salzburg, Verein VIELE (Salzburg).