The CURE Foundation celebrates the sixteenth year of the PitchWise Festival of Women’s Art and Activism, which begins on Thursday, September 9, 2021 at 6:00 p.m., and ends September 12, 2021, in the afternoon. The entire program is held in Sarajevo.
During the sixteen years of organizing the PW, the CURE Foundation has created a space for connecting and networking feminist work and culture, and bringing together artists from women’s groups in BiH, countries in the region and abroad. We hosted over 1000 socially engaged artists, activists, theorists, feminists and women’s rights defenders.
We try to gather women representatives and members of minority and marginalized groups in BiH and the world in one place, to talk about issues that are rarely or not talked about in public, to express our solidarity, stand by each other in times of crisis and present our experiences in a space where there is no condemnation.
In a society of the disenfranchised, we are here to support each other and to send the message to all those who think they are lonely in their experience of discrimination and violence to know that we are here, we who are discriminated against and who have survived or surviving violence, we are here to support you in the way you want and need. Every experience of discrimination and violence is different and the way we react is different, but the system that tolerates discrimination and violence is the same.
Therefore, this year’s central theme of the PitchWise Festival is: WE ARE NOT ALONE!
For all of us who have felt the burden of the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, whether it is about staying at home with bullies, unpaid work in the household that has increased due to the closure of schools, recreational facilities and kindergartens, additional responsibility that includes caring for children, care for family members with disabilities and other vulnerable family members who are no longer and cannot access social and health services and/or loss of employment – WE ARE NOT ALONE!
For all of us who have experienced violence and sexual harassment. For all of us whose bodies are treated as a sexual object, whose bodies are politicized, for all of us whose state and religious leaders decide on freedoms, lives, bodily autonomy, movement, dress, education and self-ownership – WE ARE NOT ALONE!
For all of us whose lives around the world are exposed to various oppressive policies, policies that express their views through and to the detriment of women’s rights and freedoms, policies that do not give women/girls the right to a dignified life – WE ARE NOT ALONE!
Women’s rights advocates and self-advocates from rural and urban areas, returnees, Roma women, lesbians, bisexuals and trans*women, women with disabilities, women whose family members have been missing, young women, elderly women, employed and unemployed, parents and independent parents, parents of children with disabilities, housewives and entrepreneurs, artists, theorists, physically active and inactive, drivers of positive change, leaders, politicians, new generations of feminists, poets, painters, women engaged in the movement, migrants and refugees, women who survived and/or are surviving violence, women survivors of sexual violence in peace, peacekeepers, non-aligned and all of us who resist oppressive policies – WE ARE NOT ALONE!
For all of us who are on the margins of society, for all those whose countries have not adopted resolutions, declarations, conventions and other national and international documents that protect women’s rights, for all those who live in countries that withdraw from international documents that protect women’s rights, for all those currently living in war, conflict and post-conflict zones – WE ARE NOT ALONE!
For all of us who live in countries where basic women’s rights are not respected, such as the right to education, sexual and reproductive health, the right to choose and plan a family, the right to a dignified life in peace without discrimination and violence – WE ARE NOT ALONE!
For all the girls who are afraid of forced sterilization, genital mutilation and underage marriages – YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
There have always been women and girls who will publicly tell the truth about their experience of violence, women who will demand freedom for themselves and for all women, women who create solidarity and support movements for all women. There will always be resistance where there is oppression – AND THAT’S WHY WE ARE NOT ALONE!
Our strength grows out of every woman, no matter how loud or quiet, whether we have just raised our voice or have been doing it for years, no matter how we raise our voice, regardless of experience and motivation – WE ARE NOT ALONE!
We launched the Festival:
- guided by the need to occupy an abandoned and neglected public space and transform it into a meeting place that brings together socially engaged artists, activists, theorists, feminists and anyone interested in women’s issues in BiH and in the region;
- to provide a safe and open space for a new generation of artists and activists;
- to never give up and, thanks to solidarity and networking with sisters around the world, to create a history of resistance so that all women are treated equally.
The main goal of the PitchWise Festival as an idea and community of people working to establish gender equality is to make and promote positive changes in the immediate environment through engaged art and activism.
In a multitude of dynamic events, the 16th PitchWise brings us numerous exhibitions, creative workshops, lectures, performances, plays, book promotions, discussions about marginalized social groups etc.!!!
The official invitation for participation with the participation call will be published on August 13th, 2021, and soon we will publish an invitation for volunteers!
