Anti-Oppressive approach
The WAI collective’s Anti-Oppressive approach “compels us to recognise and unlearn the everyday practices, assumptions, approaches, and methods that help maintain the status quo” (Baines, D. 2011, p.71). If our collective aspire to challenge entrenched and unhelpful ways of responding through a different approach, then we must be very clear about what we aim for and do not wish to perpetrate.
Broad differences between the common social approaches taken with ‘victims of violence’ can clearly be seen in the table developed by Baines (2011) below. If WAI compare our approach against this table, there are many correlations. It is clear that we aspire to work within an anti-oppressive framework. We are a collective of ‘insiders’ or ‘survivors’ (not professionals or outsiders ‘working with’ survivors), we seek to share power through a mutual process of art making as advocacy for social change, and we are united through the kaupapa and kawa we have developed. Working in this anti-oppressive way upholds the dignity of our members as it challenges traditional and modern models of practice which individualise, pathologise, and ‘help victims’.
| Model | Traditional | Modern | Anti-Oppressive |
|---|---|---|---|
| View of power | Power over | Power within | Power with |
| View of the social order | Hierarchical | Egalitarian | Unjust |
| Institutional processes | Paternalism | Individualism | Solidarity |
| Nature of relationship | Pedagogical | Neutral and professionally distant | Mutual and dialogic |
| Nature of intervention | Corrective; punitive | Counselling and personal support; self-help; information and referral | Advocacy, organizing and political action |
| Examples | Child welfare, social assistance | Sexual assault centres, Addictions counselling | Grassroots anti-poverty groups |
Figure 4 Baines, (2011,p.70) Comparison of Practice Models
What has become apparent about this WAI way of working is that the collective make decisions about the art making, the exhibition, the prioritising of resources, the kaupapa and kawa, and the public way we choose to present ourselves, however some of what happens at WAI is not undertaken collectively. The responsibility for budgeting, accessing funding, accessing resources, reporting, media engagement, communication, administration, community relationships and education is undertaken by the facilitator.
Our art making approach is very deliberately not an art therapy approach – it is an active engagement in art making as self-representation and a social justice response to the violence we have experienced. WAI focus on an active engagement in art making as self-representation - this is a very deliberate approach which challenges the stereotypes and understandings that those outside our experiences and cultures may hold about us. It is a direct response to the negative social responses received by those in the collective. Working in this way is our best attempt to address the disconnection between our experiences and the way we are portrayed in literature, art, and the media.
If WAI were an art therapy based group then there would be an implicit acceptance that those attending were there for therapy - for the help that someone more ‘together’ could offer. The art works made would also suffer this perception – they would be just another way to expose, analyse and ‘fix’ the perceived deficiencies of the maker. Indeed, Brown (in Stickley, 2012) asserts that “the application of art as medicine – as therapy – formalised and diminished art just as much as the codices of mental illness, adding seemingly impermeable layers of labelling and disempowerment” (p.24). This non-therapy, participatory arts based approach is one described through a range of key qualitative arts-based research projects in the field of mental health by Stickley (2012). From this perspective, art is seen as social action, as a political voice, with studios such as ours best described as places to meet and work alongside others who understand. They are places where our creativity is free and valued.
