The conference aims to take up the current feminist debates and discourses in various European countries, which are currently manifesting themselves in the form of huge demonstrations and women‘s strikes, but also in small initiatives between academia, activism, care work and art, and connect them with the issues and the art and care work of Kassia. In particular, the aim is to provide a forum for current (feminist) initiatives, discussions and actors to network and develop a kind of „Map of Action For A Feminist Future“ – not least with an urgent view to the current reception and implementation of the Istanbul Convention, which is currently being fundamentally called into question by the Polish government and was recently completely abandoned by Turkey. The aim of the NEW ISTANBUL CONVENT(ION) in reference to Kassia‘s medieval women‘s monastery is to create a hybrid, digital-analog format between science, art and activism, in which new narratives of a (post-)feminist future can be spun and designed. With artists, activists, scholars and students from Poland, Germany, Turkey and in alliance with collaborators and accomplices of our already existing networks in Cameroon, South Africa and Iran, the KASSIA project instigates a dialogue that opens across national and disciplinary boundaries: an interdisciplinary network between art, music, activism and science and an aesthetic and creative space for topics such as feminism, gender justice and care work, of which Kassia is the patron saint. 

09th September: KASSIA AND THE FALLEN WOMEN. AS OVERTURE OF THE CONFERENCE
SERIES // Host: Germany, kainkollektiv & friends

23th September: FEMINIST WORK. THINKING THROUGH METHODS, FIELDS AND CONDITIONS // Host: Krakow: Pracownia Kuratorska

30th September: THE RECEPTION OF KASSIA // Host: Turkey/Sweden: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul

14th October: IMAGINING KASSIA’S NEW ISTANBUL CONVENTION // Host: kainkollektiv / with Havle Kadin Derneği, Sabanci University Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence

21st October: ON SPEAKING & BEING. FEMALE SPACES OF LANGUAGE // Host: kainkollektiv / with Mirjam Schmuck (kainkollektiv), Mithu Sanyal, Kübra Gümüşay and Lydia Ziemke (suite42)

23th – 24th October: KASSIA – THE NEW ISTANBUL CONVENT-ION: ACT LIKE YOU CARE! // (bringing together all actors)