Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence

Emily Ratajkowski sits on a blue sofa, smiling while holding a microphone. She wears red boots and a black and white skirt, conveying a cheerful mood.

How can activism and art change attitudes towards sexual violence and imagine a rape free world? 

Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence was a bold collaboration between WOW and Birkbeck’s SHaME project (Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters).

Launched in 2021 at London’s Battersea Arts Centre, the first Shameless! brought together survivors, artists, academics, medical professionals and activists for a powerful day of performances, panels, workshops, wellness spaces and urgent conversation. With speakers including Emily Ratajkowski, Laura Bates, Soma Sara, Jude Kelly and Winnie M Li, the festival created a brave space to listen, share, learn – and demand systemic change.

At its heart, Shameless! seeks to break silences and shift shame away from survivors and onto the systems and cultures that enable sexual violence. By platforming lived experience and centring medical, justice-based and cultural responses, the festival challenges stigma and imagines a rape-free world.

In 2022, Shameless! expanded globally with Ecoar! – a Brazilian edition created by Redes da Maré (WOW Rio) in partnership with WOW and SHaME. Held in Rio de Janeiro, the festival foregrounded local voices and addressed sexual violence as part of wider structural oppression, especially within marginalised communities.

Whether in London, Rio, or beyond, Shameless! is a call to collective action – connecting movements, building support networks, and sparking bold conversations that push us all closer to justice, healing and lasting change.

Shameless! Festival was launched at a reception at the Wellcome Collection, featuring a speech by WOW's President Her Majesty The Queen. You can read the speech here. 

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