DAWA 2.0, a Brussels-based non-profit championing queer and racialised women artists, transformed artistic creation into political resistance against lesbian erasure in performing arts. Their “Caillasses Live” project mobilised an album through slams, podcasts, workshops and campaigns to boost visibility and rights defence, aligning directly with the EL*C Strengthening the Lesbian Movement program‘s goals of stronger advocacy capacity, political influence, and lesbian rights advancement.
Amid Brussels’ cultural spaces where lesbians – especially racialised ones – remain sidelined, the project fused art with activism to document exclusion, create expression spaces, and challenge institutions.
Caillasses Live deployed public awareness via school interventions, community events and urban posters linking to creative content; built digital visibility through a dedicated website, podcasts and social campaigns; convened workshops/roundtables co-crafting policy recommendations with artists, activists and public reps; and culminated in a live restitution event launching trilingual advocacy tools shared with European networks.
True power emerged when lesbian artists and cultural workers – often precarious and invisible – found rare spaces to voice structural barriers like discrimination and under-representation, shifting from isolation to collective strategy-building. Narratives once erased gained public legitimacy through poetry, sound and performance, resonating beyond activist circles into schools, venues and institutions. New alliances formed between artists, NGOs and policymakers, turning personal testimonies into formal recommendations with tangible political traction.
These changes rippled outward: safer spaces for self-expression fostered intergenerational solidarity; artistic tools equipped NGOs for monitoring and advocacy; and the project reframed lesbians as cultural and political forces, not marginal add-ons. DAWA 2.0 emerged stronger, blending art-politics expertise for sustained work – expanded podcasts, residencies, lobbying – ensuring lesbian voices endure as European advocacy drivers.
