Eliza Hatch

0:05[Applause]

0:07hello thank you very much for having me my name is Eliza hatch and I'm here to speak to you about my project cheer up love and the themes behind this project are something which I'm sure many of you in this room have had experience with in the past so yeah sure love is a first journalism project that retells women's accounts of street harassment and it can be viewed on Instagram page and also takes the format of a digital gallery so I interview women I photographed them in public places related to their experiences and I published their stories but before I speak to you about my process I just want to show you a short video it was about this time last year I was in central London I went through drink with someone in Soho and I needed to get back I'll stay with my granddad's in Bromley at the time.

1:08So it's really far away. And I left about midnight and I was like I have to get home time out.

1:12So I found out how to get through the bus. And I was walking there and these two middle-aged guys they sort of approached me. And I'll here we go so they're like oh so what's your name do you want to come with us. And I was like I I just said no and I carried on walking and I thought okay well I'll just ignore them and get to my bus stop and it we find and they carried him following me and there and they were what one of them was doing the talking and the other one was sort of like giggling a bit and and sort of giing him up and saying oh why don't you just keep doing it.

1:50But yeah and they kept doing this may seem to find it really enjoyable and they followed me for a good five minutes or so when I was on my way to the bus stop and I end up saying look can you just please stop following me stop talking to me. And I don't know I I'm not so I'm not a very confrontational person look can you just f off or whatever I need to get home just leave me alone and I got to the bus stop and I was really relieved because they were there about twenty other people waiting for the bus. And I thought oh this is gonna be really safe then it's someone's gonna intervene and no one intervened and I was really I mean fair enough but it all it took was one person to be like excuse me can you leave her alone and and they didn't and they kept talking to me.

2:38And I fell bit embarrassed cuz I telling these guys off in front of everyone and nothing was happening and in the end I was like woah like this I'm just gonna keep on walking so yeah. I just literally stormed off. And I was like where I'm gonna get out of this situation my bus was almost there.

2:55But I didn't want to risk them like getting on the bus. And I was like that's not what I want to happen so who ran into McDonald's and I do mean off like I checked to see if they were following me and they weren't and I checked again and they started again and I was like this is not cool so yeah I ran into the Mackey's found some people like my age and they were really lovely and I said look can I just like talk to you can I just like stick with you until these weirdos like leave me alone and I think they did but I couldn't really tell they clearly had an agenda and I don't know I don't normally feel unsafe in London. And I did and it was horrible and I end up getting an uber home it cost me like 40 quid so yeah when I found I was doing this talk I kind of knew I had to show this because by complete coincidence we I shot this in collaboration with the studio zoo and yeah we just shot it literally just around the corner so I thought yeah.

3:59I have to show this but so that's Francesca and that's Francesca's story. And that's a story that really resonated with me. And it's a story that I'm sure quite a few people have had experience with you know that time where you had to fork out for that uber that time where you had to alter your journey home because you didn't feel safe and that's the basis of my project really so bit about myself I grew up in London born and raised and I used to take the bus to school every morning in my school uniform and it wasn't uncommon to be harassed it wasn't uncommon to hear my friends stories of harassment it was just something normal it was just something that I thought being a girl was all about I grew up just brushing those things off like oh I'm just a woman that's just things that happen to women and it wasn't until this year that I started to actually not accept that I thought well no why should I have to accept that kind of stuff and it was a particular comment actually and a man will pass me and he taught me to cheer up and men have been you know this isn't the first time that I've heard this men have been telling me to cheer up my whole life it was you know smiled sure together all the time.

5:16But this time it may be really angry made me feel such a range of emotions I felt instantaneously guilty for not looking happy and self-conscious.

5:27And then angry so angry that this complete stranger had told me how to look and how to feel and all of this happened and I was still three paces behind and the man was walking off and but going about his day and then. I was just left there feeling frustrated and really irritated so bearing that in mind I went to my friend's house and I said look this has happened to me it made me feel really angry and I don't really want to put up with it anymore and then me and my friends just sat there. And we ended up sexual harassment story swapping for at least an hour like it was the most normal thing in the world you know we were saying oh so this happened to me on the past this happened to me on the tube oh I thought I was followed home the other day and then my male friends interjected into the conversation and they said oh that can't happen to you every day you think we notice that doesn't happen to you at all no I mean maybe a bit but you are over exaggerated it can't happen as often as you think as you saying it does and we were horrified and I was like you're challenging this. And that's really when I knew that was a problem and it wasn't just the harassment itself that was happening that was the problem it was the lack of awareness surrounding it.

6:39And that's when I realized I wanted to do something. So initially I wasn't sure you know if outside my close group of friends how many women experienced this. So it was really experimental at first and I just started messaging all of my friends and girls that anyone Facebook and just saying have you experienced this before it does it does this happen you know and do you have a story. And if you do would you be willing to be photographed and every woman go back to me. And I had to kind of responses the first kind of response was yes of course I'm so happy I can finally talk about this which one of my 10 stories would you like to pick from and the other response I got was oh I'm not sure I don't think anything that serious has ever happened to me I don't know if it counts and to that I basically just said well has anybody ever shouted something at you from a moving vehicle has anybody ever made you feel uncomfortable has anyone ever done something in a club or a bar said something to you that made you feel sexually threatened and then when I said that like all these responses oh yeah I guess maybe all the time oh yeah that counts I'm of course that counts that's why I want to do this project.

7:59So yeah initially it was very naive and I wasn't really sure how to go about it I kind of wanted it to be as simple as possible just taking these photos or these girls and these public settings settings that are relatable to anyone settings where anything can happen and I found that the simplicity of it worked and all you needed was that girl staring at you telling you her story.

8:27And so with that in mind I decided to go to New York and I wanted to see if people experienced it elsewhere and shock horror this happens notice in London but everywhere in the world. And so I went to New York and I invested in a better camera and I decided to really give this a go and really just try and get as many counts as I possibly could of women who experience harassment and so yeah.

8:55I want to talk to you bit about my process I guess so I got the woman to send me her story.

9:08And then I scouted location and the location is either dependent on the story or for the woman involved and the convenience and every single woman I photograph is unique and every story is unique and so every photograph and every shoot I do is completely to unique to that woman so I have some women who are you know terrified completely terrified of being photographed have the worst stage fright in the world. And I'm like do you want to do this and they're like no I have to do this I'm terrified but I have to do this I want people to hear my story. And then.

9:47I have other women who are models and they're used to having the photo taken and so it's such a learning process because you really have to accommodate for every single type of woman there is but debate the thing that I'm trying to really project is turning that vulnerability into empowerment and using that public space as a stage for the woman to speak out on to speak out about a time where she was victimized and to turn that into strength and so when I was first doing this all I knew was the response from the women who I was photographing was positive I had no idea what the kind of public engagement would be and as the project picked up. And I grew and grew and grew I started to get a lot more kind of like public feedback. And some of it was extremely overwhelming and some of it was quite shocking so I guess the most shocking or the most overwhelming for me was when I was having all of these elderly women email me and say this used to happen to me all the time this used to happen to me when I was younger but no one would take me seriously no one would listen to me but now.

11:04This is a conversation as being had and another quite shocking response I got was from elderly men and I had elderly men email me saying I'm sorry and they were apologizing is that I'm sorry I think that I used to be that guy I think I used to do that. And then.

11:23I got father's as well father's emailing me scared for their daughter's well-being so that was but I was interesting and I was I felt as if I was really touching upon something there. And it was I felt like I was kind of reaching my target audience because that's what I really wanted to do that's all I ever wanted to do was raise that awareness so now I'm at the exciting stage where I'm still photographing women and I'm still growing the project.

11:54But I'm also getting to collaborate there's some really exciting people. And some really exciting projects so a few weeks ago.

12:00I was part of the BBC 100 women challenge and that was such an interesting challenge because there were three separate ones going on in three different countries and the one in London was based in the London Transport Museum and it was all about trying to solve the problem of sexual harassment on the Underground on the bus which is actually quite a hard challenge to do with no real right answer but it was a really interesting week and it was really interesting to be part of that conversation. There was a bus that was designed by hollaback and that bus was designed to stimulate what it's like to be sexually harassed there were badges that were made to kind of like alert when you've been harassed they're interactive kind of like the baby on board ones but more interactive than that.

12:47But yeah. So that was really interesting to be involved in that. And something else that I'm involved with at the moment is I had the absolute pleasure of working with Gina Martin and she's an incredible woman and she is working on this up scouting campaign I think she's here tonight as well.

13:03But yeah. So if you don't know about it already then you should find out about it and sign the petition because she's campaigning to try and make it illegal to have anyone take a picture up anyone's skirt because surprisingly that's not illegal but yeah. So she brought me on her campaign to shoot some of the girls who have had this experience happened to them. That's something I'm really passionate about. And something. That's yeah something that has been really incredible to be part of as well.

13:36And then I guess I have to touch on this whole horrible scandal that's come out recently but also the positive things that have come out of it like the me to hash tag that's been something. That's been so positive in such a negative situation I think it's been amazing to kind of unify all of these women and kind of lift that silence on that topic but yeah with that in mind one of my good friends actually texted me and he sent me this text and he said wow there's stuff going on in the meteors it's crazy right.

14:16Now I can't believe it you know you've picked such a good time to do your project I can't believe all of this stuff's going on I was just like yeah yeah right. I was like this is the same guy who had challenged me originally this is the same guy if you kind of made me start the project in the first place you know the one who didn't believe the sexual harassment happen that often and sorry I just I just kind of laugh to myself and I just I was a vice iDevice article and okay cool so you write you believe it now.

14:52But I mean I'm glad that he's finally being convinced it only took me photographing over fifty women a Hollywood scandal a viral hashtag and a vice article to convince him of that.

15:01But yeah. So finally I just want to say like him I hope that other men have listened and other women have you know found that confidence to be able to speak about anything that bothers them that happens them in a public space and yeah. I just want to say final word you should never be made to feel uncomfortable in a public space thank you