Podcast: What’s Missing from the Conversation? Design and Sexual Violence

SHaME’s Charlie Jeffries and Avni Patel chat with Thomas Andrew Faulker and Kalpana Viswnath to explore the role of design in preventing sexual harm in public and private spaces. Does it exist? If so where?

What’s Missing From the Conversation? Design and Sexual Violence

In the second episode of What’s Missing from the Conversation, Avni Patel and SHaME’s Dr Charlie Jeffries explore the role of design preventing sexual harm. Does it exist? If so where? They chat to Thomas Andrew Faulker and Kalpana Viswnath on public and private spaces. What does it mean to move between these spaces as a woman or girl, and the design interventions that are giving us answers and empowerment, and those that leave a lot to be desired. Through this podcast, they try to understand what safety means in these places and hope for a better future.

*This podcast originally aired on Voices Radio on March 6th. It is reproduced here on behalf of the SHaME Project.

What’s Missing from the Conversation?

This is ‘What’s missing from the conversation?’ – talks, events and podcasts where we talk about important topics and ask ‘what should be said but isn’t?’, ‘what don’t we know that we should?’ and, ‘where do we go from here?’.

We partner with some amazing organisations to inform our conversation. We invite academics, artists, experts and people with lived experience to join us on the journey. 

The format: we take pre-existing podcasts and create a narrative. We then talk about the stories it reveals and, what is missing. We put it all together for you to listen to.

New way of listening. New way of exploring. New ways of being more compassionate.

For this series, we are collaborating with the Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters (SHaME) project. SHaME is a research project exploring the role of medicine and psychiatry in sexual violence. They aim to move beyond shame to address sexual violence as a global health crisis. Their research team is based at Birkbeck College, University of London. 

Support

If you are affected by any of the topics in this conversation, please reach out to one of the organisations listed below who can offer support and guidance:

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/

https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/crime-info/types-crime/domestic-abuse/

Show notes:

Thank you to the people and podcasts listed here who contribute to this conversation:

Thomas Andrew Faulker is an Architectural translator lecturing at the Architectural Association in London and working alongside survivors of domestic abuse to re-position architecture from a tool of harm into a precondition for recovery.

Charlie Jefferies is a Lecturer in American and Media Studies at the University of Sussex, and  a Senior Associate Fellow of the SHaME Project.

Kalpana Viswanath is the co-founder and CEO of Safetipin, a social enterprise that uses technology and data to advocate for gender inclusive urban spaces and mobility. She is part of Delhi government Women’s Safety Committee and has worked as a consultant with UN Women and UN Habitat. 

Avni Patel is a Creative Producer and Programmer working across museums, galleries, cultural spaces and podcasts.