DIYALA - friday night

Young, intensive, convincing, full of music. Every movement seemed to be the body expression of the lyrics and the music. Only watching was electrifying and nearly nobody, never mind of in other cases a fan of hip hop and electro, could stand still. Maybe one reason was the simple fact, that her music was not made to be categorized or it was simply the intensity of her show.

To get to know more about this remarkable croatian band watch: http://www.diyala.org/

Antje Höhne

Please, do not feed the Lesbian! - a comedian evening by Urska Sterle

Urska Sterle, a young female comedian, performed at Saturday night at the Rdece Zore Festival in the only lesbian club of the town, Monokel. The small room was already time before, totally full and entering only succedded with a strong will. At the end, people were trying to get the show also from outside... watching all this going on before, it seemed to become an interesting and good show.
But either it was my lack of knowledge about the brisance of the topic in Slovenia or my different understanding of humour. However from my point of view the presentation missed something less obvious and a deeper humour, than only a relatively open reproduction of the existing stereotypes. For sure the show of the young Slovenian comedian caused laughter also in me, but it was more a short and superficially one, than the deep one, that bumps up again and again also after the show, that I expected. Nevertheless it was an entertaining show and maybe the aim is already reached, if the majority of the audience enjoys the action.

Antje Höhne

The body as the site of the action

A moment of freedom, and a tribute to the revolutionary every day movements introduced and discussed by Noha Ramadan on the festival's sharpest and most focused discussion (with the reservation that i didn't hear it all...) - The body as the site of the action.

I would like to tell you all about it, but my brain is suffering from a temporary black out, and words wont come out. Later.

Ehrle

To get to know Joomla and some visa trouble

During the whole festival several workshops took place- part of them also the computer workshops or the gender changers. One of them was getting to know the wide world of making a web page with joomla given by Majda Puaca from Serbia, but still only until a few days before the festival it was not sure, if this workshop, as all the user actions, made by Serbians could happen at all.
The Slovenian embassy in Serbia is closed, as a consequence of the events after the declaration of independence of Kosovo and so it was nearly impossible to get a visa through the Slovenian embassy. The more easy traveling in Europe got for EU citizens, the more difficult it got for all of those, staying outside this "coterie". The positive part of the "Schengen-union", is that "people from outside wanting to enter" can take any visa of a Schengen country, not necessarily the one they are supposed to travel to, to enter EU- anyway again, another example of inclusion-exclusion mechanism and even though the festival was supposed to deal with the gender aspect of this mechanism a short improvised discussion or presentation of the events could have been interesting. Doubtless this fact was present for some of the participants anyway, sure not everybody even knew about it and I in my point of view, it can never causes you damage to realize in which environment you built up your "island" of festival, action, ...
In any case the participation of the Serbians got possible at the end and Majda could give a pretty motivating, relaxing joomla workshop, where people could really get a broad overview about the program, a delight for continuation of playing with joomla to figure out, the possibilities for the realization of what they always wanted to put at a web page, but never got to do. Furthermore at the end a short discussion with some participants started and the topic "entered", albeit in smaller group...

And for all interested i a nice example: http://www.eng.queerbeograd.org/

Antje Hoehne

Audio recordings

Barb is a radio hero! She's allready uploaded two recordings from the festival program, from now online for those that weren't lucky enough to be present IRL.

Book presentation: New feminism. Queer and Networking Conditions.

Sophia Starmack and R.G. Gözüm talking about the Turkish lesbian and lgbt movement.

Zoe Gudović - Women at Work

You are part of Women at Work (Žene na delu), organizing courses for feminist activists, who deal with women helping women victims of violence. Why did you decide to do this?

Tree years ago happened, that during one year tree of the women activists helping the victims died of cancer. We realized that they also need psychological help, because they are exposed to many negative things in their work. We decided to think about prevention, how to protect yourself not to burn out completely. We did research among these women, if they knew about burn-out syndrome, and we realized, that they don’t know what to do, how to protect themselves, that’s why we decided to focus on it.

How do the courses look like?

We involve female artists, who professionally give courses, how to use art techniques and different art media to protect yourselves. Women are for example learning how to use the space, they are acting, working with images, creating the masks... They also work with voice, learning how to be visible, realizing we have right to use our voice.

Why do you organize exactly this kind of courses involving art therapy?

It is important to use creativity. In this kind of social work you don’t have so much space for creativity. Creativity is another level, this way they can be open. They learn techniques how to solve the situation. We are teaching the women, that even when we are strong enough, we have to take care of ourselves and only then to help others. For this we need to be open and learn new techniques and things and this can help us to change our position.

You also organize street performances about violence against women.

We do it already 5 years it in the occasion of international activity 16 days of activism about violence against women. We use theater as a tool to present social issue. It is good way of communication with people, because they actually never see this kind of issue addressed in this way. We present real situations through the theater play. Our group involves 10 activists and artists. I always ask a female director from the academy to direct our play. This is also the way how to inspire the professionals to change their mind and start to think about their work in an activist perspective.

In what public places do you play?

It is diverse, it could be open markets, squares, in front of police stations, in front of a court. We usually choose the place according to the issue. Working in the street is controversial – you never know what happens. At the beginning police did not want to protect us, now they have to, because they want to look democratic.

What kind of reactions did you get?

Sometimes we had violent reactions from men watching, they were attacking us verbally. For example they were shouting, that women must be beaten, it is their role. At the other hand many women came to us after the performance and ask about more information. We provide them with leaflets with contacts for help lines. We know that some of the women came to the police and said that they don’t want to die like they saw in the performance. Many people are feeling touched and they are crying. We want to be personal for everybody, we always show different age, statuses, race, everything who we actually are, we think about the whole society.

What is your opinion of the connection of art and activism?

I am doing theater for a long time. When I started to be involved in feminism I realized, that feminism does not give you many opportunities to use you body and voice, more time we usually spend with theory. For me it is important to make ourselves strong, not to be just quiet, mild and not loud. We should not forget we are strong women beings. This is a motivation to involve more art in feminism and also introduce feminism to the artists. Using different techniques of art is a better way how to communicate with people. They better start to think, when they see something.

More informaion about projects of Žene na delu in Serbian you can find online here: www.zenergija.org

Coelestine Engels: Final Solution – Questions

Who are the persons shown at the pictures?

The portraits are showing female fighters of the resistance contrasting pictures of female Nazi collaborators. The background of the pictures is made up by their story, either as part of the Slovenian-Kärtner resistance movement either their active participation in the war machinery of the Nazi.

How you got the pictures of this women or how you choose the women?

Some of them are painted out of my memory on this person, because I knew them in real and others are made after photos. Out of both ways the lightly coloured faces are manifested at the paintings. On the one hand I wanted to face the different sites with each other with the portraits and on the other hand they are all shown in front of the same alpine landscape so you can differentiate between them, who was partisan and who was the Nazi collaborator.

Before you mentioned that some of the pictures come from your memory at the people…that meanst it is also part of your history?

Yes, it is partly a private connection with the topic but also a general confrontation with the question of decision. The personal question came up with the question how the own grandmother behaved during Nazi times…and it was connected with the fact to realize that my own grandmother acted totally different than her best friend. One went after work to the forest to take part in the partisan movement, risking her life, while the other one was working at the airport for the Nazi.

But if history was so important for the pictures or for your decision that is going to be portrayed, why you did not wrote a short description of each women to every painting?

The content is not about the concrete person, but about the thing itself, therefore I wrote only the first name of the women.

Could you describe “the thing itself” a bit more?

The thing itself is first of all the everyday question of decision. In this special case it is the question of how people decided to behave during Nazi times. But the pictures are also made in the very same stile, either it was a partisan or a Nazi collaborator because I think, that it could have been everybody, who had to decide and decide either for one or the other thing. We have to decide every moment and sometimes decisions are more important as in this case shown at the pictures others seem to be more “regular”, but decisions has to be always made and because of a certain circumstance we could have decide totally different than we did, the same with the women at the pictures. So I preferred not to put an explanation down the pictures, because it the commutability should become clear.

To get an impresion of the pictures look at: http://www.kudmreza.org/rdece/artist%20pages/coelestine_eng.html#

Antje Höhne