Project
Don’t Look Away
A ‘Street Museum’-style public art trail – with supporting digital content – to inspire community conversations around domestic abuse.
A project we are currently fundraising for, Don’t Look Away will use a process of community co-curation to develop the art trail, drawing from our rich portfolio of survivor-co-produced, domestic abuse-themed artworks to encourage friends and family not to look away from those in their neighbourhoods affected by domestic abuse.
Project Background
Feedback from our substantive process of public engagement and consultation has demonstrated that high quality artworks co-produced with those with lived experience can be incredibly powerful tools for helping survivors access the support they need and encouraging friends, family, colleagues and neighbours to respond supportively to those affected, but not all those in need of the content would necessarily attend a public cultural event. This could relate to survivors feeling apprehensive about being identified as such, community reluctance to acknowledge the prevalence of domestic abuse, with stereotypes about who can be affected by – or perpetrate – domestic abuse creating barriers to support.
The members of the public we spoke to in shaping our Don’t Look Away project concept told us:
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Don’t just focus on libraries or community centres because people engaging here are likely to already engage with support services
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Focus on locations with high footfall where people go as part of daily life e.g. doctors’ offices, hairdressers etc
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Include young people and youth services
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Include survivors in the project steering group
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Be sure to link in with support services and raise awareness of support available
Project Purpose
Understanding this inspired us to develop a project to facilitate on-the-ground community awareness-raising around domestic abuse, with an aim to reach people where they go as part of their daily lives and provide our content in a form they can access in a private moment.
We have developed the project concept with partners Creative Youth Opportunities and Blackhall Community Centre and are fundraising to bring the Don’t Look Away Street Museum to East Durham in 2026, with the aim that:
- Communities will have a better understanding of the range of people affected by domestic abuse and its different manifestations.
- Conversations about domestic abuse are started that might otherwise go unsaid and unheard.
- The artworks act as an entry point for community members to access support if they need.
Bringing the Project to Life
Street Museum
We had been wrangling with the idea of how to create an accessible community-based domestic abuse awareness-raising project for some time, when we heard about Durham University’s Street Museum collaboration with Blackhall Community Centre and got chatting to manager Alison Paterson about whether we could use a similar concept.
Artist-in-residence
We were supported by No More Nowt to run an artist-in-residence in Blackhall Community Centre, with textile artist Jayne Johnson spending time engaging the community in art-making and asking questions about how they would want to see us approach domestic abuse awareness-raising in their community.
Sand pit!
Durham University supported us to hold a “sand pit” event, where we drew together the threads of our community consultation process together with a number of academics, specialist support providers and experts by experience. We used this information to help us build the Don’t Look Away project.
Keep an eye on our social media accounts for updates on Don’t Look Away project developments.
Our
Impact
Related materials
Make Do & Mend Book
Buy our Make Do and Mend informational resource book to support learning around the impact of abuse on survivors and the more/less helpful ways bystanders can respond.
Find out more
Us Too
Set of postcards compiling illustrations by Lizzie Lovejoy, with key messages shared by the diverse survivors of domestic abuse who contributed their testimony to our Us Too soundscape.
Find out more
Sometimes It Hurts books
Buy a physical copy of our Sometimes it Hurts story series to help you support young people navigating challenges at home.
Find out more
