Photo of a box of decorated Russian Dolls

In November 2015 Artistic Director Charlotte Vincent and VDT collaborators Antonia Grove and Aurora Lubos worked with 7 community groups (60 people of all ages and backgrounds) from across Brighton to pilot our Virgin Territory workshops.

Vincent introduced the staged space to the particpants and after a short discussion about the theme of the room, participants worked on as many of the 18 self-guided tasks as they wanted to, alone or in pairs. Some tasks were about making, some writing, some reading, some talking, some drawing, some moving. After sharing what had resonated for them, the session closed with everyone contributing to VDT’s ongoing social awareness campaign #VDTEverydayAction.

Subject matter of the 18 tasks ranged from: everyday sexism to gender in warfare, child pageantry, media representation of women in music videos, stoning, the over-exposure of female bodies in the media/press, feminism, online-vs-real identity, consent, power, role models, hope, and intimacy.

You can see people’s responses from these workshops in our photo galleries.