An educational manual has been published - ARTWORKS AT QUESTION: REFLECTING ON GENDER, POWER AND EMPOWERMENT THROUGH ART. AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
This book of artworks and questions you have in your hands is a collection of classical and contemporary artworks with questions to trigger debate and identify main gender and power issues. It also contains tips and guidelines to create a space of trust and confidence where young people can question artworks from a gender perspective and also open debates on gender, power relationships and empowerment related to gender tensions in society.
This book is addressed to facilitators, art mediators, social workers and social educators working with youngsters, but not essentially. It can be used by anyone who wants to trigger debate and arise questions related to gender and power relationships. Images and artwork in general have the possibility to open new perspectives and, as mirrors, make us wonder what we see and what others see when looking at it. Questions such as ‘Who has the power to look?’ ‘Who looks and who is looked at?’ ‘Who is the object of contemplation?’ will be part of this book and it will lead us to rethink not only the canon of Art History and museums but also our own gaze and the images we unconsciously produce.
The guide is designed so that the images we present can be used to provoke debate. In each image the reader will find basic information on place, time and authorship, accompanied by a narrative for the facilitator that can help to guide some discussion. Each work then poses questions that may challenge the work or, through them, prompt dialogue and reflection. This selection has been made by young people from different parts of Europe in a participatory way, so that it has been the young people who have found these images to be the enablers of debate, deconstruction and analysis. We are aware of the Eurocentric perspective it may have and we invite readers to expand the selection with works from other origins that will undoubtedly enrich our selection by making it more diverse and inclusive.
POWER is composed of the following members (in alphabetical order):
• City of Women (CoW) The Association for the Promotion of Women in Culture, Ljubljana, Slovenia. http://www.cityofwomen.org/en
• DADAU (de l’art e de l’autre). Paris, France. https://delartetdautre.org/ (coordinator)
• EARTDI, Research group in the field of art and psychosocial inclusion, University Complutense of Madrid, Spain. https://www.ucm.es/eartdi
• Elan Interculturel, intercultural organisation, Paris, France. https://elaninterculturel. com/
• MOH - Mobility Opportunities Hub, sociocultural association in Bari, Italy. https:// www.mohbari.eu/en/home-en/
This educational material was created as part of the European POWER project, with the support of Erasmus +.
