8 March International Women’s day

We need feminism more than anything else. And feminism has no gender, it is carried by femininities, it is carried by men, it is carried by all genders. It is an effort to change something very old, vast and deeply rooted in cultures, in institutions, in households, and inside our minds, where everything begins and ends. All sexism, patriarchy, femicides, daily abuse and harassment stem from this deep darkness of our civilisation, from the culture of competition, ownership, domination, jealousy, slimy grabbing and exploitation, from the existence of wealth, from the division of the world into poor and rich. The invisibility of women and the imposition of stereotypes are not accidental but form part of a system of power that must be challenged and dismantled.

The spoken word, lectures, workshops, writing, our presence in public space at demonstrations, gatherings, book presentations bring the female body to the foreground, make it visible. And it is time once again in history for women, femininities, asexuals, masculine people and gay men to explain to themselves, to their friends, how they experience situations. To speak about their trauma and their joy, their loves, their fear, their oppression, about how they would like things to be. But also to reflect on the phenomenon of oppression, on the invisibility of the female body from the public sphere for decades.

The work of artists is to go into the dark corners of this world, to reach the unknown, the strange, the bizarre, the improper, when other people are afraid to do so. The liberation of women was not simply about being able to participate in certain institutional functions but about celebrating a liberation that is not official, state-sanctioned or rational, it is a matter of transcending the familiar, the safe, the known, towards the wider world.