Sexual violence is a huge social problem. We must hold people’s harmful behaviours to account, and achieve justice for both victim-survivors and communities. In order to do that, we need to understand what cultural conditions permit – and even encourage – harmful behaviours. Feminists sometimes use the term ‘rape culture’ to describe these conditions, pointing out that men’s violence against women and girls is normalised in lots of places across the globe.
So, here comes Dr Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer, a social scientist and creative working in the UK. She used a socially-engaged research practice of ‘scrapbooking’ to try to better understand rape culture. This involved asking twenty-three diverse adults with unwanted sexual experiences and one UK Rape Crisis centre with up to fifty staff, trustee and volunteer members to join her. But she did not want to tell them what counts as ‘culture’ or in what way culture causes sexual violence. Instead, the groups used physical and digital scrapbooks and conversations with Rosa over a long period of time to document and respond to the everyday spaces, interactions and materials which make up ‘culture’ in their lives. Many found this process to be cathartic and consciousness-raising. Many found solidarity in recognising their shared experiences of a culture that normalises sexual violence.
Rosa then analysed the hundreds of ‘scraps’ that people shared. This digital exhibition displays a number of their creations, some mixed-media and more abstract, others documenting people’s experiences and thoughts in words. On the corkboards around this room you will find their responses divided into four themes. Rosa has called these the ‘everyday scaffolds’ that support sexual violence. Each board builds a different scaffold out of participants’ individual creations and provides a definition of the scaffold.
But that is not the end…
Everyone here wants to start a conversation about sexual violence and to imagine how we could resist and change rape culture. Outside and onto the beach, two artists, Lady Kitt and Sarah Li, have responded to the themes and are already conjuring up a different world.
So, perhaps take a friend around this exhibition and start a conversation together. You could ask:
Thank you for joining our conversation.
Content and support
This exhibition deals with themes of prejudice, and interpersonal and sexual violence. You can expect some explicit language and details of violence.
If you are looking for professional support after sexual violence or just someone to talk more to about these themes, consider visiting the organisations listed below. Each organisation name is a hyperlink to their webpages which you can click on to access.
Rape Crisis England & Wales: Call their support line free 0808 500 2222 at any time of the day or night.
Galop (for LGBT+ victims-survivors): Call their support line free 0800 999 5428 Mon-Thurs 10-4.30pm and Fridays 10-4pm.
Imkaan: Provides a list of longer services, including those by and for black and minoritised women.
Accessing the exhibition
The digital curation of the installation is by Art Matters Now.
A virtual tour of the exhibition works similarly to Google Maps. Please use the cursor to ‘click and drag’ in order to move around.
Making the exhibition full screen could be helpful. You can do this by clicking the three dots in the top righthand corner of the screen and selecting ‘fullscreen’. Mobile users could orientate their screen to landscape.
Click or tap the white arrows to move around the space. You can also use this function to move from the room out onto and around the beach and into the caves.
Click or tap on the creations on the corkboards and the white icons in each scene for extra content. These icons usually look like a white ‘i’ in a circle.
Every image in the installation is accompanied by an image description.
This exhibition aims to be inclusive and accessible. But it can always improve.
If you would like to, please contact Rosa about anything relating to accessing and improving access to this digital space. Please contact her using this email address: r.walling-wefelmeyer@live.co.uk
Permissions
To quote text from this exhibition, please use the following reference:
Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer. 2023. The Everyday Scaffolding of Sexual Violence: A Digital Exhibition of a Social Science Research Project. Available online: https://www.theasys.io/viewer/...
For permission to reproduce any of the visual content, please email Rosa on r.walling-wefelmeyer@live.co.uk
Interested in this research? Look out for Rosa’s forthcoming book and read more now: Scrapbooking the Everyday Scaffolding of Sexual Violence: Making Sense of ‘Rape Culture’. 2022. Doctoral thesis, Durham University. Available online through Durham University e-Theses.
Acknowledgements
Rosa’s exhibition was supported by Loughborough University’s Knowledge Exchange & Impact Fund.
Rosa’s original research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/J500082/1).
A huge thanks from Rosa to all the scrapbookers – the individual adults and the Rape Crisis Centre – who took part in this project. Thanks especially for your generosity, enthusiasm, insight and trust. And a further thanks to the Rape Crisis centre for the wider work you do and your commitment to best practice and a better world.
Rosa would also like to thank artists Lady Kitt and Sarah Li for their wonderful responses to the research, and their support throughout the development of this exhibition.
The digital curation of the installation is by Art Matters Now. Rosa would like to extend a huge thanks to Rory and the team for their expert work and guidance.
Scrapbooking took place between 2018-2019 and Lady Kitt and Sarah Li’s work was developed between 2023-2024.
Biographies
Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer is a social scientist and creative. When not making an arty mess or bird-watching, she lectures in Criminology at the University of Reading. All content and views expressed here are fully and only her own, not those of any current or previous employer and project funder.
Disabled installation artist, researcher and drag king Lady Kitt describes their work as ‘Mess Making As Social Glue’. Kitt’s work has won North East Culture Award 2022, VAMHN Arts Award 2023, been longlisted for 2024 Aesthetica Art Prize, and shown at Atlanta Contemporary (USA), Saatchi Gallery (UK) & BALTIC, Gateshead (UK).
Sarah Li is a Scouse artist and musician/composer based in Newcastle upon Tyne. They are really passionate about community and DIY creative scenes and often makes work about queerness through worldbuilding.