Mothers & Daughters: Redefining Cultural Continuity Through South Sudanese Women’s Artistic Practices

Abstract

ABSTRACTA group of South Sudanese women came together in 2018 to share artistic and cultural practices with one another during a series of creative workshops at a community art gallery in Sydney, Australia. We collaborated with the women to organise workshop activities and a community event to showcase their cultural artefacts and items created during the workshops. Through a research-arts partnership, we documented women’s conversations about their artistic and cultural traditions and practices during weekly gatherings and pre and post-workshop discussions. This paper suggests that the women involved in these participant-designed and driven workshops were redefining their culture and cultural practices in a different place, and shaped new notions of cultural continuity, defined as the process of maintaining and passing on traditional knowledge. They conceptualised cultural traditions as everyday practices in their lived realities, and as points of connections with the past. The creation of a women-only space for artistic practices in a resettlement context provided regular opportunities for women of different ages to discuss culturally-prescribed gender norms and traditions candidly. Participant-led research-arts collaborations represent a flexible approach to exploring women’s notions of art and culture and gender-based experiences to understand how they navigate everyday social realities.