Curatorial Statement
BITCHES & WITCHES is a call for radical queer-feminist social criticism to a status-quo, in which political and social repression have become the norm. From September 13th to 22nd the WIENWOCHE 2019 celebrates all bitches & witches, who fight against toxic power and dominance structures, who identify politics which opress and exclude and carry out queer feminist and anti-rascist work, which changes, challenges and leaves an impression on the city of Vienna.
Music and activism are closely intertwined with one another. Yet again and again we are met with oppression mechanisms from Rap to Pop. The opening event of the WIENWOCHE 2019 is devoted to feminist resistance Rap and avantgardeist radical softness, which will claim the stage they are due on the Viennese Karlsplatz. Likewise during the 9 nights of events by the B&W Nightline in Café Flex. In the Feminist Meme School we learn humourous strategies against mysoginy and sexism in the net together. A permanent installation will be built by the project Goddess in Diaspora to the forgotten goddesses of the African continent, who have been suppressed, made invisible and negated by colonial historiography. Our Steps Don’t Come From Now highlights the terms witch and bitch from a decolonial perspective.
History does not only need to be rewritten from a decolonial but also from a feminist viewpoint as well. BITCHES & WITCHES build a monument to those agents who were condemned, discriminated, burned or even murdered as a cause of their revolutionary, non-conformist ideas, thoughts and actions. With the project Dikh he na bister! – “Look and don’t forget!” Roma-activists erect a memorial for the Rom*nja and Sinti*ze murdered by the National Socialists. The project Who is scared of GMF? shows patriarchal structures of collective narrative and depicts the life of the pedagogue Gerda Matejka-Felden, who fought for the hard-earned position to be the first woman* to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. The solemn choir vigil Opus Maleficarum – Echoes from Witch to Bitch commemorates Elisabeth Plainacher who was hunted and murdered as a witch in 1583. Die Spinnerinnen/ Tkaczki tells the story of Polish textile workers in the 19th & 20th century based on the book by Marta Madejska.
WIENWOCHE 2019 lays a particular focus on initiatives and groups who put collective processes into the center of their political work. Collective work sharpens complex sociopolitical content and their reach within art and activism. Together with “R.A.D.S – (Radical Anarchist Dangerous Sisters*”) we head off to a flint*¹ Lunar Ride through the city. The performance collective Existence in Resistance / Resistance in Existence thematizes the structural and systematic suppression of queer BIPOC² people in Vienna through various interventions throughout the festival and occupies capitalist spaces. The migrant sex workers collective “Red Edition – Migrant Sex Wokers Group Vienna” demands an improvement of working conditions and rights for sex workers in Vienna through their performative intervention We Work!. Contemplations to female* homemaker work is the theme for this year’s working group I Know I Care.
WIENWOCHE 2019 pays special attention to intergenerational work for and with an audience of all ages. The projects Drag Queen Stories and The Anti-Objects are directed at children and adolescents and aim to question established gender stereotypes in a creative manner. In collaboration with WIENWOCHE, Brunnenpassage presents the event titled Not a Single Story, a 3 year long diary from young girls* which focused on exile experiences and future perspectives. Further cooperations during this festival year include the projects Medeas Töchter together with Dschungel Wien and Salon Souterrain – Art & Prostitution PART II, kültüř gemma! – kulturen in bewegung and ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival.
Queerness is undeniably not just a political stance but a non-conformist praxis. WIENWOCHE 2019 presents the Crip Convention Vienna on the second weekend of the festival, which will be an exhibition at Türkis Rosa Lilla Villa with works to crip-themes such as self-determined and transformative perspectives on body issues and social relationships. A one day performance festival with the title Purrr!_Femme!-ance! that takes place on the premises of the Otto Wagner hospital and devotes itself to the multifaceted existences of desire in queer fem/me identities.
“Austria, we love you! We will never leave you!” The collective “maiz – autonomes zentrum von & für migrantinnen” fights against hegemonic power dynamics within the Austrian education system and cultural establishments since over two decades. WIENWOCHE 2019 takes this anniversary as an occasion to convey the work of maiz in the form of a symposium and together we will celebrate their birthday during the Closing event.
BITCHES & WITCHES is migrational, queer, anti-rascist, feminist, anti-fascist and intersectional. The author and activist Audre Lorde inspires us to queer feminism, which we love, which we want to impart and which we fight for and will defend:
“IT IS NOT OUR DIFFERENCES THAT DIVIDE US. IT IS OUR INABILITY TO RECOGNIZE, ACCEPT AND CELEBRATE THOSE DIFFERENCES.”
For WIENWOCHE: Henrie Dennis, Mirjana Djotunovic Mustra, Natalie Ananda Assmann
1 flint* is a German abbreviation and short for women*, lesbians, intersex, non-binary or trans persons.
2 BIPOC: Black Indigenous People of Color
