{VEM academic-artist residency collaboration: Cathy McIlwaine and Gaël Le Cornec}

“Don’t ask me where I am from, ask me if I am safe.”

This collaboration is part of the VEM+ (Visual, Embodied and Arts-Based Methodologies in the Social Sciences) collaborative hub for methodological innovation funded by King’s College London which aims to bring social science research into conversation with the arts.

It is based on research conducted by Cathy McIlwaine as part of the Step Up Migrant Women campaign led by the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) with migrant women with insecure immigration status who have experienced gender-based violence.

“No humans are born illegally, it’s only humans putting up barriers.”

Drawing on the report, The Right to Be Believed (McIlwaine, Granada and Valenzuela-Oblitas, 2019), the artistic collaboration with actor, playwright and director, Gaël Le Cornec, seeks to explore the experiences of migrant women survivors through a voice installation and performance. The aim is to explore the barriers that women face when trying to report gender-based violence when they fear their perpetrators, the police and the social services and when they are repeatedly refused support from everyone except specialist migrant organisations.