Clay workshop “850 women for 850 women” organized in Zagreb

On March 6 2023, in the House of Human Rights, Documenta organized the clay workshop "850 women for 850 women".

The workshop is part of the project "Female perspectives on the democratic transitions in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s ", co-financed by the European Union.

With the workshop, on the eve of International Women's Day, we reminded the public about the suffering of women on Goli otok and Sveti Grgur. In the period from 1950 to 1956, more than 850 women accused of association with the Informbiro underwent extremely cruel torture in the camp. The suffering of women in the camp is one of a series of examples of the marginalization of women in historical research and narratives.

More than 20 women joined the workshop led by visual artist Andreja Kulunčić. The workshop is part of her artistic project "You betrayed the Party when you should have helped it", created in collaboration with feminist anthropologist Renata Jambrešić Kirin and psychotherapist Dubravka Stijačić who has many years of experience at the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital .

At the beginning of the workshop, the participants were introduced to the testimonies of female prisoners. The women in the camp had to build paths and buildings with their own hands and with the help of primitive tools, the traces of which are visible today at the camp sites. With a system of punishment, in which female camp inmates were also forced to be torturers, the camp was a place of suffering and humiliation. Harassment of the accused women and police surveillance continued even after leaving the camp, and the prisoners were never rehabilitated, nor were the premises of the camp protected from devastation and decay.

In the second part of the workshop, each participant made a clay figurine, symbolically dedicating it to one of the female inmates. In this way, the participants participate in the transmission of collective memory of the traumatic past that should not be repeated and in the creation of a moving ANTI-MEMONIQUE as a form of contemporary memorial practices of a violent legacy around which contemporary societies have not established a consensus.

You can read more about the project "You betrayed the Party when you should have helped it" at the link.

Produced by the association MAPA, Zagreb 2023. The project "You betrayed the Party when you should have helped it"was financed by the Kultura nova Foundation, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Zagreb and the Mediterranean Women's Fund.

The project "Female perspectives on the democratic transitions in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s " is co-financed by the European Union.

This article is part of the online campaign in the scope of the project “Female perspectives on the democratic transitions of the 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s” .