The last Friday 22th of April took place the event “Equality for Women. Focusing on the History writing by women” at Zemsta book place. This event was connected to European Action Week Against Racism.That is why, when I start to think what could be the action for this subject suddenly came to my mind what is going on with all the women have never appeared in the school books neither in the school learning plans.
At the beginning I thought to celebrate this event in the Main Library of Poznan. However it was not possible neither in other public libraries. I still remember this morning when I was walking through the city walking from one place to another and all of them I visited were bussy. But suddenly someone suggested me Zemsta book place. This one surprised me a lot. I am living in Poznan since the beginning of september but I have never been there before. When I came in it was at the first love sight, I fell in love with the place.
The second part of the project was to clarify what would happen in the event. I thought to make a workshop which would be to write on sheets of paper short descriptions of women writers and after that to spread out this information through the city. But also, came to my mind the idea to invite some women writers who could take part in the event for discussing some topics such as how to include in the education system the women who actually wrote the writing History but they did not have enough recognition. Step by step, five names of women connected to writing professional field came by different ways.
They were:
Anna Kapczyńska: She cooperates with theater asz.teatr, she is dramatist, stage manager and actress. She set up and leads group of seniors which is called “Witches” (which means in polish “women who knows”). She also leads czech’s stage in asz.teatr. Author of novel “Zjeżona”.
Magdalena Podbylska: Generally She writes children books for ten years . She has written one theatre screenplay for children – it was played in Animation Theatre in Poznan. Now she is preparing a screenplay for a historical play.
Karen Kuhn- she is from South Africa and currently a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Dutch and South African Studies at The Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of English, in Poznań. She also teaches Literature as part of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program at the International School of Poznań. Research interests include female mysticism, and she’s got experience in film studies and screenwriting. Karen is a published author of Afrikaans poetry.
Martyna Gibes: She works as a physiotherapist and energotherapist, at the same time she is a lyric writer, vocalist and musician on two music projects.But especially she is a body and a soul full of music and creation.
Anna Maria Szymkowiak: She began writing a diary time ago and she realized that this one was the perfect way to even know ourselves deeply and much better. Time after she decided to carry on writing the diary but this time online.The next step was to write biographical books. Her first book was called Lucrezia inside of Kryzsiek.
Finally the meeting took around two hours and half. It is true that some of the topics have been though finally they change along the discussion. Maybe the main topic discussed was how to deal with the economical needs and the time required for the creation while artistic jobs do not give enough economical benefits for living. Even it is more complicated this matter when you are also a mother.
On the other hand, I have to say that as every experiences there were many things to improve. Especially from my side as moderator. It was a challenge to be a moderator in a meeting where it was used two languages . Maybe because of that in some point I was confused and I did not know how to bring back the speakers to the main topic.
Anyway always it is good to receive the feedback from the participants and at least have tried to set a meeting where five women could make visible some issues connected to writing professional field and personal matters affected. We will see if in the future this meeting could have a second part.