#DearCatCallers

Noa Jansma is a young artist, designer, storyteller. She is born and raised in Amsterdam, 1996 and is currently studying at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Her projects are broadly themed and hard to label. Strength, vulnerability and tactility are often recurring inspirations for Noa’s work.


In August 2017 she started a project to bring awareness about street harassment on women, known as “catcalling”.
Noa made an Instagram account where she took selfies with each of her catcallers for a month.

In the photo series both the object (herself) and the objectifier (the catcaller) are assembled into one composition, causing a shifted power ratio, together with raising awareness on the topic.
Her project got a lot of attention internationally and has gained around 350.000 followers, tens of millions of views, multiple international exhibitions and is used in various teaching programmes.

In her talk, Noa explains how, by taking selfies with her catcallers, she reversed, in terms of power, the roles (“They came in my privacy, so I went in theirs”), with startling simplicity. The result is revolutionary. Noa Jansma is a young artist, designer, storyteller. She is born and raised in Amsterdam, 1996 and is currently studying at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Her projects are broadly themed and hard to label. Strength, vulnerability and tactility are often recurring inspirations for Noa’s work.


In August 2017 she started a project to bring awareness about street harassment on women, known as “catcalling”.
Noa made an Instagram account where she took selfies with each of her catcallers for a month.

In the photo series both the object (herself) and the objectifier (the catcaller) are assembled into one composition, causing a shifted power ratio, together with raising awareness on the topic.
Her project got a lot of attention internationally and has gained around 350.000 followers, tens of millions of views, multiple international exhibitions and is used in various teaching programs. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx