Cartographies of interruption and influence: Feminist educational strategies in museums in response to gender-based violence
24-27 August 2025, Merano Women’s Museum – Via Mainardo, 2
Sunday, 24 August
9:30 – 10:15 Welcome
* Sissi Prader, Head, Merano Women’s Museum (Italy)
* Gaby Franger, IAWM Board Chair (Germany) and Tijana Jakovljevic Sevic, IAWM Administrator (Serbia/Germany)
* Darlene Clover, Connection Workshop Convenor (Canada)
* A brief history of FIRN
* Overview of Programme & Logistics Mary Ann Sing (Canada)
10:15 – 11:15 Introductions (Darlene Clover)
* Ice Breaker – Feminist Museum Bingo
* Who I am, where I work, why I came, what matters to me
11:15 – 11:30 Stretch Break
11:30 – 13:00 Violence, Femicide and Dialogue (Moderator: Stefania Pitscheider Soraperra)
Elke Krasny – Transnational resistance against feminicides and the museum (Austria)
Walai Buppha – Objects of memory; spaces of safety: Women’s remembrance in times of insurgency (Thailand)
Claudia Mandel-Katz – Visualizations of decolonial resistance to violence against Afro-Caribbean women in Costa Rica (Costa Rica)
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch (on your own)
14:00 – 15:30 Building Bridges (Moderator: Elke Krasny)
Stefania Pitscheider Soraperra – Feminism in the countryside: Building bridges, breaking boundaries (Austria)
Lara Perry – Museums and reproductive rights (United Kingdom)
Le Cam Nhung & Nguyen Thi Tuyet – Vietnam women’s museum: Where the aspiration for peace is told through a gendered lens (Vietnam)
15:45 – 16:30 – Guest Talk (Moderator, Tijana Jakovljevic Sevic)
Aleksandra Berberih Slana – How can you push the agenda without being pushy? Balancing activism and audience engagement in museums (Croatia)
16:45 – 18:00 Feminist City Tour (Guides: Judith Mittelberger and Hannelore Schettler, Italy)
18:30 Welcome Dinner — Tyrolean Restaurant
Monday, 25 August
10:30 – 12:00 Military and War (Moderator: Nancy Taber)
Sinéad McCoole – Women’s Museums: Recording military action and peacemaking in a conflicted Ireland (Ireland)
Gaby Franger – Stitched resistance against war and oppression: Narrative textiles that cry out (Germany)
Tetiana Chernetska – Feminist Museum work in the context of the Russian Ukrainian war (Ukraine)
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch (on your own)
13:00 – 14:30 Institutional Strategies (Moderator: Egenur Oztelli)
Burcu Yılmaz Gündüz – The case of Istanbul Women’s Museum in the context of structural violence in Turkey (Turkey)
Meral Akkent – Istanbul Gender Museum: Intervening in public space with women’s words (Turkey)
Micki Voelkel and Shelli Henehan – Restructuring the narrative of Miss Laura’s Social Club (USA) (Via Zoom)
14:30 – 15:00 Stretch break
15:00 – 17:30 Workshop (Facilitators: Claudia Diaz-Diaz and Darlene Clover)
* Curatorial practice as feminist adult education
17:30 Evening (on your own)
Tuesday, 26 August
Morning and Afternoon
9:00 – 10:30 Creative Practices (Moderator: Lara Perry)
Egenur Oztelli, Claudia Aucello & Maggie McColl – The museum(s) of absence: Addressing gender-based violence and ‘difficult knowledge’ creation in museum spaces (Scotland)
Samba Yonga – The power of digital technologies to (re)write herstories (Zambia)
(via Zoom)
10:30 – 11:00 Stretch Break
11:00 – 12:30 Challenges and potentials (Moderator: Maggie McColl)
Federica Liberti – Free to dream: Exploring gender-based challenges through art, feminism, and activism (Italy)
Glenda Hecksher – Women’s Museum Casa Turquesa, Cancún: “Where women and the Sea dialogue with history” (Mexico)
Mansoureh Shojaee – A museum of our own: Born in Iran, growing in the diaspora (Iran)
12:30 – 13:30 Lunch (on your own)
13:30 – 14:45 Small Group Work: Designing the Future (Moderator: Darlene Clover)
Table One: Global Research Collaboration (Facilitators: Clover & Franger)
Table Two: IAWM Strengthening Activities (Facilitators: Jakovljevic Sevic & Pitscheider)
Table Three: Creative Outputs (Facilitators: McCoole & Liberti)
Table Four: Publications (Facilitators: Diaz-Diaz & Krasny)
14:45 – 15:00 Stretch break
15:00 – 16:15 Group Discussion (Moderator: Gaby Franger)
* Sharing our ideas
16:15 – 17:00 Closing of Cartographies Gathering (Darlene Clover)
Evening IAWM Welcome Reception & Dinner – Kornplatz 3
Wednesday, 27 August
IAWM Conference Begins
9:30 – 12:30 Creative writing and museums (Introducer: Darlene Clover; Facilitator: Nancy Taber, Canada)
1) Talk: War, museums, and fiction-based research: Creative writing as a tool to (re)story gendered violence and resistance
2) Experiential Workshop: Practising creative writing with flash fiction: Feminist museological pedagogies
12:30 End of conference