‘Creating Feminist Audiovisual Content: Promoting Audiovisual Culture with a Gender Perspective’ (CAVGEN) was a project carried out at the University of Barcelona, which aimed to incorporate a feminist and gender perspective into university teaching and audiovisual culture. Its main purpose was to create feminist audiovisual content that reflected on the representation and presence of women and men in audiovisual and interactive media. These materials were produced with the active participation of students from the Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media (FIMA) and were disseminated via an open-access digital repository.
The project was framed within a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology with an ethnographic focus, combining participant observation, field diaries and a qualitative socio-semiotic analysis of the audiovisual pieces created. This approach enabled the integration of research, teaching and social transfer, promoting a more equitable and critical media culture.
Throughout the project, workshops on audiovisual creation with a gender and feminist perspective were held, led by experts and partner organisations such as Dones Visuals and La Bonne (Francesca Bonnemaison Women’s Cultural Centre). These activities gave rise to a variety of audiovisual pieces developed by students on the Audiovisual Communication and Digital Information and Documentation Management degree courses, with the support of FIMA’s Centre for Audiovisual Production and Entrepreneurship (CPEA).
CAVGEN made a significant contribution to integrating gender, feminist and LGBTI+ perspectives into university-level communication studies, promoting more inclusive and equitable representations in students’ audiovisual productions. It also highlighted the importance of involving all students, particularly those who do not initially feel drawn to feminism, in participatory processes of creation and critical reflection on gender inequalities in the media.