Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 67

Participatory Practices
Jenna Ashton
Jenna Ashton is Founder and Creative Director of arts and heritage organisation Digital Women’s
Archive North CIC (DWAN). Her work specifically concerns global feminisms and women’s
movements in relation to creative resistance through arts, heritage and participatory practices. Her
research specialisms include digital feminisms, alongside digital futures in arts, archives, museums
and galleries. Additionally she works on feminist curatorial and archival practices. She is editor
of two-volume international publication “Feminism and Museums: Intervention, Disruption and
Change” (September 2017, MuseumsEtc). DWAN is co-creating a digital space that will function
as an archive, educational resource and alternative media outlet, supporting the connectivity,
campaigns and creative cultural resistance of feminist practitioners and organisations. Jenna’s
current positions also include Impact and Engagement Manager in Research and Knowledge
Exchange at Manchester Metropolitan University and Honorary Research Fellow of Sociology
in the School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester. She sits on the Trustee Boards of
Victoria Baths and Delia Derbyshire Day.
I am a feminist scholar and curator working in the areas of heritage, archives,
visual culture, and the arts. Voice is central to my work.
Voice is closely connected to identity politics of marginalized people. The
“global right” plays identity politics very well, espousing nationalism and
identity privilege, a defined mantra of “them and us” to incite fear and hatred
of the “other”. The Left must re-politicize our creative engagement with
voice. We must ensure that at the heart of our artistic endeavours, of our
interventions, we attempt to disrupt and make change. I argue that to fully
reclaim voice from the Right we must embrace intersectional participatory
politics and artistic practices. Participatory practices embrace identity
through an inclusive and collective framework of tolerance, freedom,
solidarity, and justice. These practices query the voices of privilege and work
towards transforming systems of oppression.
Creative spaces for participation concern multiplicity, not
the promotion of a dominant superior. Festivals, marches,
protests, walks, and pop-ups can offer effective participatory
models and disruption to the everyday. Central to these
forms is the presence and presentation of the body within
public spaces, where identity and voice can be highly visible
and audible. Methods include costume, chants, songs, satire,
placards, posters, puppetry, street performance, space take-
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