The Women’s Art Activation System (WAAS) is an artist collective that aims to activate women’s art. Principal artists Sharon Bennett and Sarah Dixon collaborate to make live art, performance and socially engaged works.
The WAAS makes artworks that question established structures that inhibit and marginalise people, particularly female-identified people and those experiencing pregnancy, childbirth and mothering. Working with humour to address serious issues The WAAS makes rituals and processes that enquire into, and shift, widely-established social power dynamics.
Sharon and Sarah are representatives for Pregnancy and Mothering on the Disconnected Bodies Arts Advisory Board and most recently worked with Axisweb, Social Art Network and Manchester Metropolitan University on a commission called Social Art for Equity Diversity and Inclusion (SAFEDI) funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council. Other works include interactive performance A Visit by the Bureau for the Validation of Art performed at the Grace Exhibition Space in New York via Zoom in 2020, Offbeat Performance Art Festival 2021, Social Works?:LIVE in Manchester, and Art Licks London and The Baby Makers, a series of facilitated workshops for women in pregnancy and post-birth currently funded by a grant from the National Lottery Community Fund.