Istanbul Biennial celebrates 8 March International Women’s Day with a two-day event, presented with the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Titled Side by Side Together!, the online event will take place on 13 and 14 March and will focus on the collective memories and futures of women in refuge. The event will end with a concert.
Organised by Istanbul Biennial and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) under Çiğdem Öztürk’s coordination, Side by Side Together! Women’s Collective Memory in Refuge and Building a Common Future will span two days with various sessions on Zoom, gathering musicians, journalists, filmmakers, writers, and representatives of institutions and initiatives working with refugee women in the field of culture and arts.
On the first day of the programme, the director of the Istanbul Biennial Bige Örer and GIZ Turkey director Rubeena Esmail will welcome the audience and the participants. The following session titled With the Language of the Instruments will open with a keynote speech, What’s the Use of Music for the Migrant? by ethnomusicologist Evrim Hikmet Öğüt, who works in the intersection of migration and music within and outside the academia. Öğüt will share her experience on collaborating with refugee musicians in Turkey. Following the keynote speech, journalist Banu Güven will be in conversation with musicians who either live in Turkey currently, or has passed through Turkey during their search for a refuge. Titled With the Language of the Instruments, the session will invite Nour Abuhemeida, Raghad Balasem, Ahoo İrani and Nûdem Mohammed to share their stories with music. The next session titled The World Widens as We Read, Look, Listen will host journalist and writer Pınar Öğünç and filmmaker Zeynep Dadak with their presentations around the landscape of migration in visual arts. Each session will be followed by a Q&A.
The second day of the event will kick off with GIZ Support to Refugees and Host Communities Cluster representative Katharina Montens’s keynote speech, Dealing with the Past to Create a Future – Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in GIZ. Later, representatives from institutions and initiatives that bring together women from refugee and host communities in developing cultural and artistic activities will invite the audience to ponder upon new ways to work together. The session will be guided by the ideas that will arise from the closed workshop, Our Common Future, which is to be organised as part of the event, prior to the live session.
Organised to celebrate 8 March International Women’s Day, Side by Side Together! will end with a concert by the Georgian women’s chorus Peradi, meaning 'multicoloured' in Georgian. With the introduction of Selda Öztürk from the renowned local choir Kardeş Türküler, Peradi will sing songs at Salon İKSV in Georgian, Russian and Caucasian languages.
* Attendance is subject to capacity and free. The programme will take place on 13 March, Saturday and 14 March, Sunday between 15.00 and 18.30 (GMT+3). Link to participate in the event will be sent via e-mail to registered guests. Click here for registration.
** To follow the sessions with simultaneous translation to Turkish, English or Arabic, please connect to the event from the Zoom app on your mobile or desktop devices and choose your preferred language of translation. Translation option is not provided in case of access through Internet browsers.
