Museum of women’s stories
Publication
The publication titled “Museum of women’s stories” completes a three-year (2014/2016) art research project dealing with the historical and contemporary role of the women in the larger socio-political context in the country.
“Museum of women’s stories” is published by Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives in Arts and Culture Skopje under the Decentralized cooperation programme between the Lower Normandy Region – France and the Republic of Macedonia.
The “Museum of Women’s Stories” is a collection of texts, which summarizes various authors’ views and positions through which is perceived the role of women in history, socio-cultural and political life. These authors’ perspectives give polemical overview of the role and the position of women, their status in the past and today, and offer a specific approach that comes from their professional field. They also reflect critically in terms of today’s socio-political climate and its impact on the position of the women in the society.
The authors of the texts in the publication are Rubinco Belchevski, Anastas Vangeli, Iskra Geshoska, Hristina Ivanoska, Ilina Jakimovska, Goran Janev, Violeta Kachakova, Aleksandar Litovski, Elena Marchevska and Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski.
The co-authors of the project are Iskra Geshoska, Hristina Ivanoska, Violeta Kachakova and Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski. Iskra Geshoska, Violeta Kachakova and Biljana Tanurovska-Kjulavkovski edited the publication, the author of drawings is Hristina Ivanoska who did art and graphic design with Jana Acevska.
“Museum of women’s stories” grew out of the idea to explore, perceive and (re)affirm the role of women in socio-political, social and family context by reading cultural meanings, symbols, associations, hidden behind the historical facts, in the first half of the 20th century in Bitola, Prilep, Krushevo, and in the surroundings of the Pelagonija Region.
The main goal of the “Museum of women’s stories” was to discover and deconstruct, through sublime, socio-cultural reference notes, the historical facts behind the existing specific social relations and dynamics, as well as ideological and discursive apparatus, and their participation and influence in the creation of cultural meanings and the emancipation of women from past to present.
The project “Museum of women’s stories” was implemented in several phases in the period of 2014/2016. The project started with a research conducted in 2014/2015, which enabled a collection of material and data from different sources (books, essays and scientific and historical texts, memoirs and reminiscences from public archives, interviews and conversations, other studies, reports and surveys, public discussions – followed by film screenings).
In 2015 an audio-visual exhibition was developed, composed of drawings by the artists Hristina Ivanovska, and an audio interpretation of Iskra Geshoska’s text – “The voice of the shadow”, and interpreted by Milica Stojanovska. The exhibition was presented in Bitola, Prilep and Krushevo. In each city we organized a discussion with invited local participants (historians, curators, sociologists, activists), which was moderated by the co-authors of the project.
For now this is an e-publication and it is free for download. If we manage to provide additional funding, we plan to issue a hard copy version in order to promote it along with the exhibition in Skopje in 2017.
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Drawing by Hristina Ivanovska/ photo of the drawing- Darko Culic