PARTICIPATORY ARTS

SHOUT MENOPAUSE! was a participatory arts project that used portraiture and creative expression to facilitate conversations about menopause. The project began with private one-on-one interviews where I sketched participants while we chatted about their knowledge of menopause to establish baseline comfort levels while talking about menopause. The subsequent group workshop employed multiple engagement strategies: a "Gallery Walk Mixer" with menopause-related imagery, group discussions about menopause symptoms, colour psychology discussion, and portraiture instruction.

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Participants paired up to create portraits while discussing menopause, using a "Comfy Scale" to track their comfort levels throughout the process. The workshop concluded with a “fireside chat” reflecting on the art and menopause. In the final phase, participants chose to share their art in an online exhibition, with promotional flyers that included artist statements that expressed their feelings on menopause to contextualize each artwork in the exhibition.

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This multi-layered approach successfully transformed a potentially sensitive topic into an accessible creative dialogue, using art-making as a bridge for personal expression and community connection around menopause experiences. In three-stages a safe space was created that encouraged knowledge sharing, increasing levels of personal reflection, and community dialogue around menopause, a topic often surrounded by silence.