Commissions & Collaborations

“Violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men & women, which have led to domination over & discrimination against women by men… violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men”.[1]

It is for this reason that our initial focus was to ask women about their stories & give them a platform to be heard: when Managing Director, Lisa Charlotte Davis, founded Changing Relations in 2013, part of her inspiration was the One Billion Rising movement launched by Eve Ensler (writer of The Vagina Monologues) to raise awareness of the UN statistic that, globally speaking, 1 in 3 women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime, which equates to about one billion.

This inspired us to develop The Women’s Voices Project, to literally give voice to women. The women we spoke to along the way told us they valued being heard & that hearing their stories in a public arena was empowering, making them feel they had been taken seriously. Make Do and Mend is the result of this project, which is why our characters are all women.

[1] Quote taken from Nicole Westmarland’s book, Violence against women. 2015

We now continue to work with, & alongside, a variety of professional creative practitioners, including visual artists, writers, actors, performers, film-makers, sound artists & choreographers, utilising their skills & creative tools to create original & innovative work – producing a range of content drawing on different art forms to challenge thinking around gender equality, gender norms & healthy relationships. We use this as the basis of education & training that we offer to schools, communities & professionals also work in partnership with a wide range of partners, from schools, to Universities, to public, private & voluntary sector organisations, as we recognise the value of bringing together the relevant expertise for the given piece of work.

As a company, we use the arts to achieve our social objectives as we believe that this way, we can reach the heart as well as the mind, engaging people in the stories & perspectives of others, a crucial foundation of an empathetic response.