Kilim
Topics
women’s histories, migration, cultural memory, community building through arts
Disciplines
feministic initiatives, arts, emotional understanding, oral stories
HUB IDEA
Kilim (κιλίμι) refers to a flat-woven textile traditionally made across regions of Anatolia, the Balkans, and the wider Eastern Mediterranean, reflecting at least five centuries of complex cultural and personal influences from nomadic women (Sumru Belger Krody, “The Power of Color: Anatolian Kilims”, 2016). Here, Kilim signifies a collaborative project between Khora, Yellow Brick, Rizes Lab and NTIZEZA, within the context of VAHA III: Reclaiming Common Spaces through Art and Culture in Solidarity.Kilim proposed a hybrid narrative based on postmemory and oral history, focusing on herstory; a feminist approach to history that highlights the roles and perspectives of women and emphasises their daily experiences, emotions and gendered dimensions. We chose to examine the city’s migration and movement history through the humble lens of oral narratives and the urban space. In a city constantly re-imagined over its own ruins of belonging, Kilim emerged as a minor archaeology of the present. Our gatherings, stories and shared meals became slight gestures of reclaiming what survives beneath the myth, the cradle of democracy, narratives that need living neighbourhoods to be “cleaned” or commodified. We did not seek to restore the past, but to inhabit it differently, acknowledging how stories of displacement, solidarity and everyday survival continue to shape the city’s fragile commons.
Nea Ionia
Yellow Brick
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Nea Ionia
Yellow Brick
yellowbrick.gr/
Yellow Brick is an independent contemporary art institution in Nea Ionia, Attica, active since 2016. Founded by artist Vasiliki Sifostratoudaki, it fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and cultural exchange through engagement with writers, curators, and the local community. Its multimodal approach includes exhibitions, educational programs, artist workshops, publications, communal dinners, and experimental activities, encouraging research and cultural rethinking. Yellow Brick explores themes such as the body and community, healing and rest, labor politics, exhaustion, traditional women’s knowledge, migration, displacement, and language across borders, creating a space for artistic inquiry, exchange, and collective reflection.
Athens
Κhora Community Center
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Athens
Κhora Community Center
khoracollective.org/
Khora is a self-organised collective founded in 2016, with members coming from different continents and backgrounds, aiming to provide open, social and cultural spaces in solidarity with displaced people in Athens. It currently runs a social kitchen, a free shop and an asylum support office. All services are provided for free, to anyone that needs them. We value solidarity, autonomy, community, freedom of movement and the right of everyone to access the basic means to live in our city. Khora has over 30 members, one part-time admin, and two interpreters. The kitchen serves over 800 meals/week.
Athens
RIZES LAB
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Athens
RIZES LAB
www.instagram.com/rizeslab/
Rizes Lab is a non profit organisation based in Athens which was established in October 2024 by Dr. Stella Dimitrakopoulou (dance artist, educator and scholar) and Korina Kotsiri (arts educator and production manager). Our aim is to carry out innovative art programs that are designed and implemented through collaborations and synergies with social, cultural and educational agencies and groups. Our goal is equal access to art for everyone. Our projects so far are both artistic and educational and include dance, performance art, visual arts and therapeutic practices.
TRANSNATIONAL EXCHANGE IDEA
Jineika—from Jin (woman, life) in Kurdish and the Greek suffix -(e)ika denoting plurality and collectivity—brings together two groups of women artists from Amed and Athens for a research exchange grounded in feminist historiography. Through two field visits, participants will explore how women’s stories and struggles intersect across geographies, creating counter-archives that challenge patriarchal silences. In Athens, KASED will host a multilingual feminist storytelling workshop inspired by Kurdish oral traditions and the dengbêj practice, reinterpreting these narratives through a feminist lens. The Kilim hub will lead a durational workshop on counter-cartographies, engaging participants in embodied research—walking, dining, and listening—to reflect on the city as body and the body in the city. Together, these activities foster transnational solidarity and collective feminist memory.Jineika is created in collaboration with KASED.
