XIV PitchWise festival of women’s arts and activism in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2019!
Women in resistance – The rebellious other half!
Fondacija CURE marks the 14th year of the festival of women’s arts and activism PitchWise, which starts on the 12th of September 2019, and lasts until the 15th of September 2019 in Sarajevo.
At the festival we plan to host more than 300 participants from all over BiH and the region, and as part of this year’s program, at least 50 artists, theoreticians, activists and women who have resisted inequity treatment will present themselves. Participants will be from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Germany, as well as representatives from other countries from the other continent.
The central theme of the Fourteenth PitchWise Festival is:
Women in resistance – The rebellious other half!
Women’s lives around the world are exposed to various oppressive policies, which place their political views on women’s freedoms and women’s bodies. Policies that do not allow women the right to own themselves, and the right to a dignified life.
We are aware that there are those who do not consider their rights to be denied, but they consider that they have guidelines which they follow and that they provide protection in this way. However, to be a woman and to satisfy a system that will always find a way to show that you are wrong and guilty only because you are a woman, is very hard.
But there is resistance in every oppressive system! Indeed, throughout the world, as well as in BiH, invisible and socially marginalized women raise their voices and create a different reality. Women who are changing the world, and saving the world from oppressive politics, fascism, clericalism, radicalism, nationalism and patriarchy.
At this year’s PitchWise Festival of Women’s Art and Activism we will present women who with their personal engagement occupy and take over public space, question and create different policies in the public space, and on that way they create a more just world for all beings on the planet.
PitchWise – Festival of Women’s Arts and Activism is the first of its kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina and aims to affirm and expand a platform that connects women artists from BiH, Southeast Europe, and the world. Through a four day series of events, the festival will gather a large number of diverse artists, activists and academics all of whom will share their knowledge, talent and skills between each other and a broader audience of young people and citizens, creating a network of arts for social change in our respective communities. In the past several years, the PitchWise festival has grown and its audience is expanding. The main idea is to celebrate achievements of women, and contribute to a greater visibility of women through arts.
The PitchWise festival directly includes as a participants young women, women from rural areas, women from all parts of BiH and women from the region. In that way we would exchange different experiences, knowledge and the love towards women’s arts and activism. Beside the mention beneficiaries above, benefit from the PitchWise festival would also gain all the citizens from Sarajevo regardless of their age, gender or social status.
The idea for a women’s festival stemmed from the recognition that there is an insufficient amount of women space on all societal levels in the BiH, but an abundance of women who are addressing and/or brining changes trough what they do – whether in arts or through fighting for women human rights. By addressing burning issues in our respective countries and communities through different art forms, we are not only providing certain solutions to some of those issues, but also empowering individuals to take part in and take control of their lives and future. The women festival of arts project is rooted in the idea that the transformative power of art can mobilize an individual to make the needed changes in one’s life without expecting dramatic transformations, but rather to find inspiration and strength in the process which is in itself the carrier of change. We believe that arts in combination with activism and social – change – driven activities present the very much needed balance in our daily life, ensuring that we can both make the changes in our environment while remaining intact with our individual needs and expression.
The festival has grown out of the need to take derelict and neglected areas and transform them for a meeting which will bring together socially engaged artists, activists, theorists, feminists and all others interested in women’s issues in BiH and the region.
Main target audience are young people from Canton Sarajevo and women, young women, girls, women politicians, LBTQ, women with disabilities, women from rural areas in BiH and region, women who survived war torture and sexual violence single mother, also our focus will be to bring young women from small areas from the EX-Yu counters.
Target group are young girls that doesn’t have the opportunity to meet and network, it will enable them direct transfer of knowledge and experiences with activists, artists and theoretician that work on activating their local communities for years and create positive changes in society.
PW provides us with a creative and secure space for everything that is the other and different, which is now considered a marginalized social space.
The activist art moves the borders of esthetics, socio – political and technological advancement in its efforts to challenge traditions and cultures and hierarchy set by those who are in power.
In the variety of its events, the 14th PitchWise festival will produce numerous exhibitions, creative workshops, lectures, performances, book promotion, discussion on marginalized social groups, concerts, parties, movies …
In PitchWise tradition the entrances for all PW events are free!
