Amid current socio-political tectonic shifts, wars, hunger, severe climate change, and attempts to undermine women’s rights from all sides of the world, Foundation CURE emphasizes:

One is not born a feminist — one becomes a feminist!

In announcing our twenty-first PitchWise Festival of Women’s Art and Activism, Foundation CURE dedicates 2026 entirely to becoming a feminist.

This year, we are questioning our shared efforts to strengthen the individual capacities and skills of women of all generations, with the aim of empowering the women’s movement physically, intellectually, and emotionally, as a way of strengthening resistance to patriarchy and to the forces of violence and destruction. We are focusing our attention on building gender justice, questioning individual freedoms in the context of collective freedoms, peacebuilding, and opposing anti-gender movements.

We are working on ourselves so that we can be collectively stronger and more prepared to respond to the new challenges ahead. We are passing on knowledge and skills accumulated across generations, transforming them through new approaches to multiple realities.

This year’s PitchWise Festival — „Becoming a Feminist“ — promises numerous exhibitions, dynamic creative workshops on women’s health, life skills, and empowerment, performances, theatre plays, concerts, and book promotions. Panel discussions will explore the feminism of our everyday lives and enable a feminist journey through time, with the transgenerational transfer of knowledge. We are creating a safe space for workshops on women’s health, life skills, and mechanisms of self-defense — both physical and emotional. The night program is reserved for rhythms of solidarity through musical performances by women artists who celebrate our existence and togetherness.

We, the organizers of PitchWise, want to show that the women’s and feminist movement exists at the local, regional, and global levels, and that we are part of it. Through networking, erasing borders, creating a safe space for exchanging experiences, and giving and receiving support, we have always resisted — and will continue to resist — every oppressive policy and patriarchy. This is precisely why we are strong, brave, courageous, and, most importantly, determined. Our strength grows from every woman, young woman, and girl, regardless of how loud or quiet we are, regardless of whether we have just raised our voices or have been doing so for years, and regardless of the way in which we raise our voices.

We launched the festival:

• guided by the need to reclaim abandoned and neglected public space and transform it into a meeting place that brings together socially engaged women artists, activists, theorists, feminists, and all people interested in women’s issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region;
• to provide a safe and open space for a new generation of women artists and activists;
• so that we never give up and, thanks to solidarity and networking with sisters around the world, continue creating a history of resistance so that all women may be equal and free in the countries in which they live.

Using the feminist classroom as a method of learning, we affirm and validate women’s feminist knowledge, opening the way for new generations of feminists. PitchWise is not only a feminist festival; PitchWise is a space of resistance, a place of empowerment, and a creative platform where art and activism together shape a better future for all.

Our choice is peace, nonviolence, inclusion, safe space, and equal opportunities for all of us*! We stand for fundamental freedoms, a dignified life, and safety for all girls, young women, and women.

STAY WITH US!

PitchWise