March the 8th is a date that is known as International Women’s Day. Last year, in London, a female street art collective called WOM gathered a crew to paint a wall outside Brixton Gym, on Somerleyton Road. Climbing ladders, the artists were wearing some top-of-the-line masks to be protected from the aerosol can vapors. On that cold grey March afternoon, people could see the artists in action, smiling, laughing, enjoying themselves.
The result is a twenty-meter-long colorful wall, covered with feminine faces, accessible to anyone willing to admire a piece of street art. “How do you think people feel when they pass by the wall?” we asked Elena González, known as Elno, one of the founders of WOM. “Powerful,” she replies, with eagerness in her eyes. In-deed, powerful it is. The wall shows five female faces. And that is, in itself, a victory.
Created in Summer 2019, WOM Collective “happened organically,” as Elena puts it. It all started with a group of artists on What’s App, only women, supporting each other, sharing opportunities for jobs, and tips. During the pandemic, the support got stronger. “This collective is more than what I was expecting,” Elena points out. “I just wanted to have more fe-male energy around me and feel comfortable.” But what was it that could be uncomfortable? “Me, I go where I want,” said Carleen, another founder. “But some girls, they get intimidated, so we offer them a safe place to paint.” “Once, some men took my spray cans,” said another artist. “Like, who does that?” she asked sharply.
Street art is surrounding us in cities. As rebellious it claims to be, it under-represents women. Mostly, street art is a male-dominated environment. Representations are those of men’s faces when it’s not objectifying women, men’s graphical identities, painted by men. Therefore, does street art live up to its subversive identity when it’s not taking women’s struggle on board? Our public space can be seen as a re-flection of our society. Researchers found that when men are used to spending some time on the streets, in front of coffee shops, on benches… women very often only go through it, to go from point A to point B. Women do not stop off.
For Elena, women’s insecurity is the issue. “As women, we are scared,” she says. “We are not safe on the streets.” For her, the police and the government must take some respon-sibility. “But as women, what can we do to feel more secure?” she wonders. One thing is certain, Elena does not want to stay in her house and just do nothing. The key for her is training: “I need to know how to fight, how to defend myself,” she adds.
Fighting is what the women on the wall seem to be doing. Starting from the very left, a woman, her hair blowing in the wind, with a red face, is staring at the public, her eyes full of determination. Next to her, a strong piece instantly catches our eyes. Under a full moon, a wide-eyed woman wearing a scarf is looking at the public. Crossed in front of her chin, index fingers in the air, she is asking the public to be silent. On the right, a woman with blue arms and a dragon face seems to be on strike, demanding something. Below her, a black woman’s profile, Egyptian-inspired, is showing off her blue and yellow wing.
On the evening of 3 March 2021, Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered in London. As she was walking home, the young woman was raped and killed by police con-stable Wayne Couzens. Her murder triggered a wave of shock and indignation. Acts of violence perpetrated against women are systemic. They of-ten lead to murders, as Sarah Everard’s case, called féminicide in French. The UN website reads: “An estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to inti-mate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life.” In Sarah Everard’s case, a law enforcement officer was to blame. And this fact itself gave a whole new dimension to this issue. A paradigm shift spread over social media.
Newspaper and public opinion then denounced “victim shaming” to-wards women. “How short was your skirt?” can a woman hear when she’s being assaulted. Women are still held accountable for the aggressions they are victims of. Common sense dictates that women are expected to be responsible and not expose themselves to danger. They’re supposed to po-lice themselves. The murder of Sarah Everard enhanced an already widely shared view. Spread the idea that first and foremost, the responsibility was to be taken by the aggressors. How can policemen police other men if themselves are perpetrators? Here and there, we could read “educate your son” replacing “protect your daughter”.
Alongside this shift, meant to re-frame the responsibility for sexual aggression and violence on the perpetrator rather than the victim, everywhere men were asking “what can we do to help you feel safe?” And WOM’s answer was one of unity. In Leake Street Tunnel, women and men painted to stand together. “No means no”, “Freedom”, or “Enough” were some of the words displayed on the wall. Through its support, WOM was re-claiming “safe spaces for women and respect”, as written on their Instagram posts. On Instagram, WOM quoted Alan Watts, the post reads: “Duality is always secretly unity”.
For Elena, street art is about touching people, asking herself what message she wants to convey. In Spain, she started to paint when she was 15 years old, “but nothing serious”, she says, smiling. “In my hometown, I used to tag everywhere,” she points out. At that time, painting was a therapeutic activity, when her fashion studies were not too overwhelming. After she got her diploma, the crisis was happening and there were no jobs. She moved to London to work in theatre but there, she would meet artists and reunite with painting.
Elena is not tall, but she is incredibly warm. She wears some colourful bangs, and her plush panda-shaped backpack suggests an inner world that would reflect in her art. “I take my in-spiration from the circus”, she says, “I love animés movies, Studio Ghibli, the connection with nature.” She recalls: “For a while, I was painting a lot about my feelings and emotions.” She used to paint only sad faces, “super cute but crying”, as she puts it. People were surprised, because, beyond humility and kindness, Elena has a very cheerful aura.
Then, she started to teach herself about womanhood, spirituality and her connection to nature. “I try to put that into my pieces and maybe create a conversation from there,” Elena says. As for today, she organizes workshops for children and adults where they can learn graffiti, painting on clothes, typography, oil painting. And she is committed to this collective that triggers people’s curiosity.
“We can be so rich about how we learn from each other, if we remove the competition between women.”
“Random people will still be surprised when they see women painting together,” she admits. But male street artists admire what they do. Elena succeeded in bringing together all these women with different styles of painting. “It is not a competition between us,” Elena says. According to her, if your artwork is good, it does not matter if you are a man or a woman. “We can be so rich about how we learn from each other if we remove the competition between women,” she points out.
In the middle of the wall, three hyenas seem to vibrate, ready to jump out of it. Hyenas are known to be one of the animals where the female has the most important place. Female hyenas lead the pack, they are bigger and more aggressive than the males who are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Furthermore, female hyenas have a protruding penis-shaped clitoris. Therefore, choosing this animal is not trivial.
Next stop for the collective is to bring more funding and incorporate writers in the collective. Open jams will happen more often as well. “It’s the perfect place for everyone to come and join and paint,” Elena says. She would like to do talks, give advice through experience, grow more in terms of giving support. On the wall, two scales evoke justice. One is carried by the fifth woman, on the top left, under the writing “WOM Power”. This last face has pink hair and green skin. It is Elena’s piece. The character is holding a blue sword and a scale. Set down on the scale, the heart is heavier than gold.
Juliette Fevre
Juliette Fever 