Gender-based Violence

Round-table Discussion

Criticism of violence has always been part of theoretical and practical pursuits of feminism, which has, in its long history, connected to anti-militaristic and anti-nationalistic fights. Among those was, for example the Women in Black (Žene u crnom) movement: this transnational women movement was formed in Belgrade in 1991 during the wars of the former Yugoslavia and carried out non-violent, silent protests of women dressed in black, in public spaces. A feminist politisation of violence points out the social and cultural mechanisms that produce violence and draws attention to the fact that the violence of the authority is race-, class-, and gender-determined. Certain marginal communities suffer the violence of neglect that eliminates them by not sanctioning violence against them or simply not helping them. The round table will open the topic of violence wide and touch upon the neuralgic points of contemporary society: abortion rights and unwanted pregnancy as violence, femicide, the #MeToo movement, rape as a weapon of war, resistance against repression of women’s bodies, care as violence, the questions of which lives matter and which do not, which death is mourned and which not, and when violence can be an emancipatory tactic. To kill and let die is the state of the contemporary world. What can artistic practices contribute?

Guests: Sara Afzali, Katja Čičigoj, Tjaša Črnigoj, Šejla Kamerić, Darja Zaviršek

The event is free of charge and will be conducted in English.