City of Women explores nation, nature and norm

According to festival director Teja Reba, the festival aims to explore the "perverted" relations between the three concepts and what dangers these relations might bring about.

She said that various events in history had led to changes in what people believed to be natural and in what set certain groups of people apart from others.

The festival will open today with an exhibition in the Kresija Gallery by Spanish artist Laia Abril, which explores the damage a lack of legal and safe access to abortion can do to women.

On Sunday, the Alkatraz Gallery will host a film installation by Swedish visual artist Anna Linder, which addresses the issue of same-sex parenthood and non-traditional family types.

The festival will also feature works of several Slovenian artists, including a performance on the topic of motherhood by Saška Rakef, Barbara Krajnc Avdić and Pia Brezavšček and another on the public safety of women by Irena Pivka.

Visitors will also be able to enjoy two improvisational concerts as part of the City of Women, one on 10 October by Slovenian violinist Ana Kravanja and Austrian bass clarinetist Susanna Gartmayer and the other on 12 October by six musicians from abroad, led by German vocalist Ute Wasserman.

Two dance shows will also be featured, one by Irish artist Oona Doherty, entitled Hope Hunt, and the other, Performing Gender, which will explore where dance as an art form meets gender as an expression of oneself.

The City of Women will also feature a networking event which will bring together local, regional and international feminist and LGBTQI groups.

The festival will close on 14 October with a burlesque performance entitled Matilda Buns and her Buns by Slovenian artist Urška Vohar.