The Power of Moving Visuals and Art in Research and Outreach for Empowerment
Moderator/organisers:
Margreet van der Burg, Wageningen University, Netherlands
Nozomi Kawarazuka, International Potato Center (CIP)
Participatory video without assistance of professionals: a powerful tool for engaging with the marginalized
Annejet Brandsma, Independent filmmaker/photographer, Netherlands
Documentary 'Women of the Land'
To nuance the image regarding farm women. The current collective image needs another, more modern addition. I want to do this through film and photography. The images of life in the (Dutch) countryside that have shaped our collective memory seem to come from a period when people still wore traditional costumes and transported buckets of milk by bicycle. Documentaries about the Dutch countryside are often about farmers fighting against government or other large institutions. Women are never the main theme, are never questioned about their lives and roles within the farm. I think that art, or image, is a very strong tool to start the conversation, because it's an accessible medium. Everybody can watch a film or look at photographs. I would like to present the documentary and discuss the image regarding women of the land.
Eza Doortmont, University of Manchester, UK
Paiba Salma | Women’s Gold
This research was carried out with the shea butter processing women in Tampe-Kukuo, on the outskirts of Tamale in Northern Ghana. Shea butter is a product traditionally made by women. The demand for this product has grown drastically over the past decades, and this has changed the production and production space of the commodity. Women’s Gold is a film and accompanying dissertation, exploring ideas of safe space, personhood and gaining more than the material independence connected to shea. Through the exploration of this research, I have tried to understand and represent what the women in the shea industry gain in terms of social connections and prosperity. This research also explores the fact that the benefits gained by the women are jeopardized by changing gender dynamics, connected to a rapidly changing value chain. I applied a feminist approach as my methodology in filmmaking to seek a different perspective, while using a sensory way of filming to evoke ideas of embodied experiences and emphasize the sensuous knowledge of the daily lives of women. This project has also resulted in the creation of spaces to discuss and understand gender within the shea commodity chain.