Calico

A Female-Led Arts and Activism Social Enterprise, Using Theatre, Film and Virtual Reality to Combat Gendered Violence.

Calico is a female-led arts and activism social enterprise, using theatre, film and virtual reality to combat gendered violence. 

Calico was founded by Daz Scott and Martha Harrison, in direct response to the murder of Sarah Everard. This event occurred during our final year at the University of Birmingham. In response to this tragic event, victim-blaming narratives were prevalent, with media responses suggesting that Sarah should’ve ‘flagged down a bus’ or been more ‘street wise’ to avoid being attacked. We, and our community, were outraged by these narratives and wanted to do something about it. 

In May 2021, we created our short film, Curfew, which asked young women in Birmingham ‘what would you do if men had a curfew?’, and brought their answers to life. The project aimed to shine a light on the invisible curfew placed on fem presenting people, and imagine a world where public spaces were safer for everyone. Curfew was picked up by Transport for West Midlands and used in the evidence base for their VAWG reduction strategy presented to the Department for Transport. This was when we realised that our work could serve a real purpose in cultivating a community, shifting perspectives, raising awareness, changing policies, and inspiring future changemakers. 

We are currently developing Curfew as an outdoor production, using dance, theatre, drag, verbatim and video projection to explore the fem experience of public spaces at night. Based on our short film by the same name, Curfew is built with the verbatim voices of 16-86 year-olds from our community, aiming to provoke conversations around victim-centred approaches to gendered-violence reduction. All about reclaiming conversations and spaces, Curfew celebrates all of the weird and wonderful things we could be doing if public spaces were safe for everyone. 

Previously, 10 – 30 minute scratch sharings of ideas for Curfew have been performed at Camden People’s Theatre, Pleasance Theatre, Swan Theatre Worcester, and Worthing Theatres and Museum. In this next stage, Curfew will go through further Research & Development (R&D), funded by Arts Council England (ACE). The aim of this stage of development is to bring together a Producer, Sound Designer, Set/Costume designer, Projection Artist, and Daz & Martha as the Devisers/Directors to explore the vision of Curfew as a public intervention performance piece. 

Once the R&D is complete, we aim to be in the position to apply for funding for the rehearsal process of Curfew, and an initial small-scale tour ready for Summer 2025

Note that, separate to this R&D, Calico are also developing CurfewVR: a virtual reality empathy training tool exploring the fem experience of public spaces at night. Funded by Innovate UK, CurfewVR uses virtual reality to invite users to step into our shoes as we travel through Birmingham at night. Together, Curfew, the live show, and CurfewVR exist as Calico’s flagship multimedia campaign fighting against gendered violence in public space.