Digitálias: a Women Art Collective in the Fight Against Gender Violence Through Co-Creative Net Art.

Abstract

In this article, we present and discuss the ongoing co-creative net art and transmedia labs with Digitálias, a female collective in the fight against gender violence. Since 2018, we have been organising art labs with the Associação Ser Mulher (ASM), based in Évora, aimed at female victims of intimate partner violence living in a Shelter House, as well as ASM technicians. The labs are part of an exploratory research whose main aim is to analyse how the community artistic practice of net art can play a social role as a tool for empowerment, self-esteem, and identity, using an arts-based action research methodology through the creation, production, and dissemination of practical artistic projects (project-based research), and using women from shelters who are victims of domestic violence as a case study.