BRAWE at Bánkitó Festival
Wish Tree
by Aylin Sabi
13, 15 and 16 July 2022
The ritual of the wish tree is practiced in the rural areas of Turkey. In an attempt to make their wishes come true, the locals hang colorful textile materials on the branches of lonely trees.
Performative Laundry
by Dominika Drótos
14, 15 and 16 July 2022
During the performance discussing the issue of invisible reproductive work, you will have the chance to experience the community feeling of public laundries while also getting your clothes cleaned.
THE VAN PROJECT
by Klaudia Januško and Hediye Usta
14, 15 and 16 July 2022
With our action we want to highlight the importance of talking about domestic violence and the Istanbul Convention. We believe that everyday social arrangements in Hungary and Turkey can be influenced by traditional and cultural structures in many ways. In our project, we would like to make this phenomenon a topic of discussion, using tools we have all encountered before.
The idea for the action is based on the similar gender presentation in both countries and the role of domesticity in society. One emblematic, tangible similarity is that particular van. In both countries it is on the streets at roughly the same time when men are at work, what the van advertises is for women who are active at home. In Hungary, goose and duck feathers are bought up and cleaned, and in Turkey the same is done with upholstery repair and cleaning.
We go around like a van, a traditional, familiar way, we advertise in Hungarian, English and Turkish the slogans that help women regain or exercise control over their bodies. THE VAN PROJECT brings a series of events into the everyday lives of festival-goers that would start a conversation. With Bluetooth speakers and decorated bicycles, we tour the festival from 10 am to 2 pm, hand-delivering leaflets we send information to people about women's full independence and the importance of the Istanbul Convention. We use slogans like “WHO LOVES DOES NOT KILL. WE WANT SECURITY INSTEAD OF FLOWERS”.
Rebuild
by Deniz Varlı
14, 15 and 16 July 2022
The aim of the therapeutic process is to help you realize your inner struggles and to get a hold on them. After you wrote down a personal problem on a piece of paper, you can symbolically get rid of it by tearing up the paper. Using the pieces we make paper mache with which you can create symbolic shapes special to you. What are we doing as an idea in this workshop?
We determine the discourses that restrict our lives and condemn us to live in a narrow space, and we show our struggle to destroy it. With recycling, we continue to transform and develop, as women do in every field, with features such as producing food from less materials in the kitchen, raising, training and showing direction. Then, with the shapes we make with this dough, we bring the new and beautiful things into our lives in a brand new way with our struggle and effort.
In addition, a material such as dough refers to women’s work and labor. Afterwards, the shaping workshop provides permanence in its positive form.
For the shaping workshop, we will ask you to create an image in the direction of what feminism means individually, how you realize your own struggles.
Before destroying the sentences at the stage of writing, photo shoots will be made, and then photos will be taken in the form they are made. I will create a post-festival photobook with the idea of “what happened”.
Modern Witchcraft
by Franci Kas, Magdaléna Szijjártó, Renáta Szabó and Hediye Usta
14 and 15 July 2022
We bring modern witchcraft to Bánkitó, where people who visit us can recharge, and receive face paint and a potion, which will highlight their personality, and transform them into their inner witch. Come, if you want to learn about witch history, and have a relaxing and magical experience.
You are not home anymore (!)
by Elif İlayda Bekdemir
14, 15 and 16 July 2022
“You are not home anymore (!)” is an installation of a space made of red threads woven among trees in the forest. The participants draw their own route to pass through these ropes, and the route may be easy to follow in wider parts, and sometimes the texture becomes so dense that the participant can be stuck in it. Based on the idea “the private is political", the installation aims at a new perception of space limited by ropes in a free space, i.e. the forest. The participants’ preferences produce new playgrounds.
Turkish Coffee and Fortune Telling
by Berrak Güloğlu and Elif Atılır
15 July 2022
Aside from being a delicious variety of coffee, Turkish coffee has various symbolic meanings. As the famous saying goes “a single cup of Turkish coffee is remembered 40 years”, the ritual of having Turkish coffee is beyond the consumption of a beverage but rather an experience to be shared with loved ones.
Another aspect of this ritual is the fortune telling part, which is usually practiced by women for other women whom they are friends with. Even though some people in the friend group might be famous for their fortune telling skills, anyone with a basic knowledge on symbolisms or who trust their instincts can tell fortune. This part of the Turkish coffee drinking ritual is very important because it also works as some sort of a therapy session for women who are from every step of life with every socio-economic background. Especially for the older generation who has stigmas around therapy or basically for women who does not have access to therapy benefit from those sessions, listening to each other and giving each other advice and hope for the future thanks to their positive “visions”.
Even though we are not sure if it is possible to predict the future by fortune telling, we want to celebrate this tradition as a form of female empowerment while inviting 30 people of all genders and all steps of live to join us for a fortune telling session practiced by participants in pairs (who are strangers) to spread love, hope and maybe create a friendship or a memory that will “be remembered for 40 years”.