RISE FOR THE BODIES OF ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS AND THE EARTH
Women = cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence.
We are experiencing the devastating consequences of the ongoing vicious systems of patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism and racism on the world today. We see this destructive battle for power fought over women’s bodies and the body of the earth. The devastation cannot be ignored.
This past year has seen global lockdowns, government neglect, health crises, proliferation of authoritarian regimes, endemic exploitation of labor, escalating corporate greed, worsening poverty, racism and exclusion, the grave ongoing destruction and pillaging of the environment for capital, as well as the deterioration of the climate. At the core of all of this is the injurious hold of patriarchy and misogyny ––on women’s rights and freedom.
We have seen more rapes, more domestic violence, more abuse, more exploitation, more trafficking, more hunger and death, more political persecution, more restrictions on freedom and mobility, more forced migration, more femicide, more loss of reproductive rights, and more and more violence. The violence of discrimination, of exclusion, of poverty, of inequality, of occupation, of exploitation, of suppression, of displacement, of oppression, of control has been severe and unrelenting.
WHEN ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS FEEL SAFE IN THEIR BODIES, THEY COME INTO THEIR POWER, SEXUALITY, JOY, CREATIVITY AND ENERGY.
WOMEN’S BODIES HOLD ENTIRE COMMUNITIES IN NURTURANCE AND CARE, KEEPING THEM ALIVE AGAINST ALL ODDS.
THIS YEAR WE RISE FOR A FUTURE WHERE ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS AND THE EARTH FLOURISH IN A JOYFUL SYMBIOSIS.
WE RISE TO END THE WAR OF VIOLENCE ON WOMEN’S BODIES—TO END RAPE, BATTERY, SLUT SHAMING, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, INCEST, TRAFFICKING, FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING, MISOGYNY, HOMOPHOBIA AND TRANSPHOBIA.
WE RISE SO ALL WOMEN MAY RECONNECT AND RETURN TO THEIR BODIES AFTER RAPE AND ABUSE.
WE RISE SO THAT THE LABOR OF THEIR BODIES IS CHERISHED AND VALUED.
WE RISE SO THAT THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE THE DESTINY OF THEIR BODIES
AND HAVE FULL ACCESS TO REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.
WE RISE SO THAT ALL WOMEN ARE NOT DISCRIMINATED AGAINST ON THE BASIS OF THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.
WE RISE SO THAT THEIR BODIES ARE HONORED AND RESPECTED, NOT COMMODIFIED, OBJECTIFIED OR EXPLOITED.
WE RISE SO THAT ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS ACROSS THE WORLD HAVE EQUAL ACCESS TO VACCINES, HEALTH SERVICES AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES.
WE RISE TO END THE ONGOING RAPING AND DESECRATION OF THE EARTH. THIS INCLUDES FRACKING, DRILLING, MINING, DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS, AND RECKLESS ABUSE AND PRIVATISATION OF OUR LANDS AND WATER.
WE RISE FOR THE COLLECTIVE BODY OF SOLIDARITY WHICH IS OUR GREATEST STRENGTH.
THIS IS AN ARTISTIC UPRISING:
We call on the world to hold Artistic Risings for the bodies of all women and for the “ultimate body”, our earth.
Using the body as your call
Using the body as your resistance
We call on the world to use ART
Dance. Visual art. Physical and immersive theatre. Film. Sculpture. Painting. Sports. Performances (Live and Recorded). Photography and digital art. And more.
To reclaim
To express
To defy
To disrupt
To unite
To radicalize
To awaken
To revolutionise
And to create JOY, HOPE and TRANSFORMATION
On SOCIAL MEDIA create content and images that empower the body, that get to know the body, that find a language of love, compassion and celebration of the body.
With DANCE create spaces for intentional and sensual dancing, hold ecstatic dance events with no choreography, and use dance to reclaim life force, sensuality, sexuality, eros and wildness.
Through VISUAL ART, photos, images, digital art, painting,.reimagine the body. Visualise what a body looks like that is free, that has agency, sovereignty, dignity and respect.
Create immersive, participatory THEATER that centres visceral, intuitive movement – no longer using our current stories of oppression and violence, but finding a physical experience that inhabits a world where the body is alive and free.
Then connect the BODY and the EARTH through these artistic expressions by creating, holding, filming, capturing them inside NATURE, particularly in earth spaces you want to reclaim: the sea, mountains, rivers, forests, public parts. Use ritual, community and nature to explore the body of the earth and the body as nature. Set your art form outdoors, in the beauty, wildness and vastness of the earth – and use music, rhythm, chants, drumming, your hands and bodies to touch and celebrate the earth.
Change the narrative from the current to the future.
Subvert our current paradigms and expectations of the body and the earth with art.
Create revolutionary art that fires and awakens the senses.
Root it in radical love, radical pleasure and radical compassion.
Move love, connection, eros and joy.
Demand a new language for this life.
Rise for the sacredness of all women’s bodies.
Create for the holy ground of Mother Earth.
Reclaim freedom.
Raise the vibration with ART.
RISE. CREATE. RECLAIM
RISE FOR THE BODIES OF ALL WOMEN, GIRLS AND THE EARTH
