Graphic tools for visible feminism

“En forme.s” is part of a series of workshops already held at the Consulat Voltaire in Paris, as part of the March 8, 2022 International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and in Chaumont (Haute-Marne), during the 2021 Biennale du design Graphique.

In the current context of strong collective mobilization against inequality and violence against women, Atelier Baudelaire proposes to question the graphic forms of the event in the public space. How can typography, color, shape and material revisit contemporary activism and convey complex, sometimes unspeakable messages? Through graphic devices that unfold in space, how can we point to the responsibility and influence of these signs in the construction and deconstruction of societal paradigms?

The challenge is to collectively invent new graphic writings and committed communication objects. It’s a question of rethinking the dialogue between typography, color and the object of protest communication, in order to give new forms to messages reflecting the struggles of the contemporary feminist wave.

Our response includes a filter on social networks that plays with shapes and slogans, the latter allowing us to create printed posters as well as animated posters that bring the message to life with news videos. This three-phase system allows us to move from individualistic digital use to print in the public space, and then back to digital in the public space.

The idea is to integrate all volunteers into the process of creating and disseminating a message, and to have a face that carries a voice and expresses itself within a digital space where everyone can feel free to express themselves, in the same way as in the public space during a demonstration. This would be a kind of virtual demonstration, using the power of social networks for all their magic (instantaneity, anonymity, visibility, where anyone can give their opinion and participate). This response gives people the opportunity to make their voices heard via social networks, in a way they couldn’t or wouldn’t in real life. The idea is to get people thinking and questioning, by relaying information and making it visible. The different media enable us to make connections between various subjects that are being called into question today, but which date back a long time, and to take stock of the evolution of the cause between then and now.