FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture

FORCE is a creative activist collaboration producing large-scale public art projects and communication campaigns to promote a culture of consent and healing for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. 

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FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture is a survivor led artist collective dedicated to disrupting and ending rape culture. Through public art actions, they create images, healing spaces, and rituals that trouble mainstream notions of consent and sexual violence, and build new visions of a world without rape. Their art is a vehicle for collective action and expression, subverting dominant cultural tropes to amplify survivor narratives and call for social change. FORCE is currently led collectively by Shanti Flagg, Studio Director; Saida Agostini, Cheif Operating Officer; and Hannah Brancato, Co-Founder.

FORCE's practice is intentionally collective, because there is no one survivor story that defines this movement, and has become more so over time. This purposeful collaboration is embedded in their largest project, the Monument Quilt. A growing collection of two thousand survivor stories painted, stitched, and drawn onto red fabric and handmade by each participant, the quilt comes together to literally blanket public spaces.

"The Deutsch Foundation support has enabled FORCE to develop our organizational capacity, strengthening our collective's leadership and ability to engage in art and activism to end rape culture and build a world where rape no longer exists." - FORCE

Find out more at their website.

Links:
Baltimore Sun: The Burden of Black Women
Baltimore City Paper: Monument Quilt Display
Female Trouble Podcast: Shanti Flagg and Saida Agostini
Refinery 29: Rape and Abuse Survivors Are Making a Powerful Statement