Shaving Patriarchy is the title of a performance by the feminist art collective HAVEIT. It was first performed in the centre of Pristina on 28 November 2016, Albania’s Independence Day, as a protest against the principles and role of patriarchy in Albanian culture. Based on this performance, the subsequent discussion will focus on the role of feminist (performance) art in public space, especially in Kosovo, and the emancipatory potential of collective working practices. What role do feminist performative practices, especially in public space, play in times of multiple crises?

This event is part of the encounter and networking project Geographies of Collectivity. Artistic Infrastructures in Times of Crisis: Berlin-Vienna-Graz-Minsk-Kharkiv-Pristina (September & October 2024) at alpha nova & galerie futura

HAVEIT – Alketë Sylaj, Hana Qena, Vesa Qena, Arbërore Sylaj – is an artist collective founded in 2011 in Pristina, Kosovo. Using performance, protest and video installation as the backbone of their work, their artistic expression often takes significant risks in what is still perceived as a predominantly conservative society. Their practice includes public performances, public interventions, video performances and exhibitions.

Dr. Lorena Juan is the current artistic director of the Biennale für Freiburg. In her curatorial practice, she works with experimental formats, public space and collaborative processes. As a researcher, Lorena Juan focuses on practices in art and activism that emerge from queer feminist collectivity. Lorena Juan has curated exhibitions, event series and screenings in Berlin at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Akademie der Künste, Schwules Museum, nGbK and Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, among others. She is co-founder of Coven Berlin, a queer feminist online platform for embodied affective research and hybrid artistic approaches focusing on the intersection of environment, migration, class and gender. Since 2020 she has been co-curator of Kunst im Untergrund, an open, international program of art in public space as part of the nGbK in Berlin. She was exhibition curator of the transmediale festival from 2020 to 2024. She has taught at the Berlin University of the Arts and the University of Hildesheim.

Dr. Catherine Nichols is an arts and literary scholar, curator and writer. She currently works as curator at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin, her most recent exhibition being Alexandra Pirici – Attune. In 2022 she curated Manifesta 14 Prishtina: it matters what worlds world worlds: how to tell stories otherwise. Besides curating a broad range of cultural history exhibitions at institutions across Germany on topics spanning from the Reformation to the passions, from the sun to sexuality, she has mounted numerous monographic and thematic art exhibitions and has published widely on contemporary art as well as editing numerous catalogues and books.