UpFront Survivors

UpFront Survivors is a pioneering, three-year programme about creative changemaking, designed and led by CSA survivors in partnership with frontline services to work against stigma, silencing and censorship towards social justice, access and inclusion.

We celebrated the launch of this ground-breaking project with one of the first ever pop-up cultural spaces for the CSA survivor community, friends and allies from 23rd to 26th March 2023 in Bristol,

An ABC of CSA:
 

Finding The Words To Talk About Childhood Sexual Abuse

An ABC of CSA is a creative resource to support better conversations about child sexual abuse. In collaboration with over 40 CSA survivors through Women's Centre Cornwall, moMENtum, SARSAS and Devon Rape Crisis, Viv Gordon Company has co-created a beautiful set of illustrated alphabet cards, illustrated by Artist Imogen Harvey-Lewis, the designer behind Cutting Out. 

Coinciding with Sexual Abuse & Sexual Violence Awareness Week 2023, the project was launched at MakeTank, Exeter, from 6th to 11th February 2023, with an exhibition and a free week-long programme of creative workshops, performance and film.

RESTLESS

Restless is an arts activism project about community, visibility and voice for survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) that uses punky, anarchic art to shout it from the clifftops, that thing that most people can't talk about.

The project's flagship element is a four-part punk band, fronted by Viv Gordon Company's Artistic Director, Viv Gordon, performing songs that were inspired by coastal walks across the South West in Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Somerset.

CUTTING OUT

In a tipi in the middle of Somerset, when she was a new mum and there were only the wilds, Viv Gordon remembers.  Through her characteristic humour and warmth, Viv leads us through the act of remembering and what happened next. Cutting Out is a powerhouse of a show combining installation, live performance and collective acts of resistance - this is a vital call to arms.

“One of the most moving, thrilling, angry and poised pieces of theatre I have ever seen. Viv Gordon holds the space in a way that made me hold my breath, grip my knuckles, cry and yet feel completely safe. This is brilliant theatre”
Sarah Blowers, Co-Artistic Director, Strike A Light

PLAIN SIGHT

Plain Sight is a creative research project designed to challenge harmful attitudes that exist in society about adult survivors of child sexual abuse.

Viv Gordon Company worked with Dr. Alison McKinlay from the Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology at University College London to understand what needs to change in terms of how CSA survivors are thought about and talked about in the UK today.
The project has been supported by the Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network to  work collaboratively to create a series of short films inspired by CSA survivor responses to our anonymous online creative survey. You can watch the videos here.