Successes and challenges of feminist arts-based participatory methodologies with homeless/street-involved women in Victoria

Abstract

This feminist arts-based participatory research project with a group of homeless/street-involved women used group interviews and the creation of collective and individual artworks to explore their personal and political realities and share these with a larger audience. The project built trust and a sense of community, encouraged artistic skills development, and allowed to emerge an artistic identity to combat the stigma of the label ‘homeless’. Individual and collective empowerment came from creating artworks collectively but also, the recognition the women received through publicly sharing their artworks. Tensions and challenges emerged around art as education versus therapy, individual and collective works, the role and place of men, and mental health and the police, two things ever present in the lives of these women.