City of Women International Festival of Contemporary Arts

The City of Women International Festival of Contemporary Arts presents women artists from Slovenia and abroad working in different disciplines and contexts. Held annually in Ljubljana over a period of 10 to 14 days in October, the festival presents some 40 events – including theatre, visual arts, performance art, dance, film, video, literature, and multimedia – which relate or reflect the selected theme of each year’s festival. In 2017 the festival was awarded the EFFE Label 2017-2018, marking it as one of the ‘remarkable festivals’ in Europe.

Background

The festival was first organised in 1995 in Ljubljana as an initiative of the Governmental Women's Policy Office (later renamed as the Equal Opportunities Office) in order to draw attention to the relative lack of participation and presentation of women in the arts. Since 1996 it has been organised as an annual international festival of contemporary arts by the City of Women Association for Promotion of Women in Culture.

For example, the 2008 festival edition, titled Raw Symbiosis, focused on the understanding of culture and the legitimisation of power relations through discourses about nature, to man's relation to animals, and to technology as the new nature of man. The 17th edition of the festival in October 2011 was called Abrakadabra featuring the secrecy, illusions, rites and pure imagination that actually reflect the social, political and individual transformations. Further editions of the festival were Aging (2012), Let's create a place for ourselves (2013), Survival Tactics (2014), and The Body - My Territory (2015).

Venues and locations

Events are held at various sites around Ljubljana and in recent years also other Slovenian cities, such as Maribor, ranging from established cultural institutions to alternative spaces. Apart from films, performances and exhibitions, the festival features round-table debates, lectures, and workshops, focusing on themes dealing with key problems of modern women and highlighting other marginalised social phenomena.

Programme

The City of Women celebrates diversity. The festival is a platform for a variety of opinions and perspectives of artists and theoreticians from all around the world. It aims to articulate the position of women in contemporary society through marginalised perspectives as well as attempts to bring different political and social emphases to the established conceptions of modernity. The festival offers an increasing number of its own productions and co-productions, mainly from the field of performing arts and dance.

In 2019 the City of Women Association launched an international project Women on Women (WoW) together with partner institutions Outlandish Theatre Platform CLG (Ireland), Prostor rodne i medijske kulture K-ZONA (Croatia) and Tiiiit! Inc. – Skopje (Macedonia). The project aims to try out new models of solidarity and knowledge exchange between different communities, celebrating at the same time past and present achievements of women.

WoW awards

In the frame of the project, WOW (WomenOnWomen) awards will be presented to female, transgender or intersex heroines, fighters for equality, women's rights, the common good and community. Or as they put it: “overlooked champions of a better world, who have made a consistently positive impact on the struggle for gender equality and social justice in Slovenia.” The awards are presented in March in four partner countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Ireland).

Other activities

Furthermore, the City of Woman is also present throughout the year, organising lectures, public discussions, civic initiatives, and so on. Its important program activities are also international collaborations, networking and promotion of Slovenian artists abroad within partnerships and/or international co-productions.

In 2005, the festival launched a web platform COWeb - City of Women Goes Web!, intended to be an ad-hoc publication of critical writing in relation to the festival's events and to art in general. Until 2010 each year a number of establishing critics joined the team and covered the events.

External links

Gallery

Drage drage (Expensive Darlings), choreographed by Maja Delak, premiering at Dance Theatre Ljubljana co-produced by Emanat Institute and City of Women International Festival of Contemporary Arts, 2007.

Drage drage [Expensive darlings], choreographed by Maja Delak, premiering at Dance Theatre Ljubljana during City of Women International Festival of Contemporary Arts, 2007

My Body, My Territory, a street performance by the ACT Women group at the October special festival edition Red Dawn above the City of Women in 2013

Ana Čigon's performance Thank you, dear Ladies at the October special festival edition Red Dawn above the City of Women in 2013

City of Women International Festival of Contemporary Arts

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