For every Feride in Moria who speaks and her voice is not heard,
for every Eleni in Mytilene whose life is ignored,
for every woman in the world trying to find a place.
We women are screaming for freedom
but they silence us using every form of violence.
We’re tired of hiding,
We’re tired of being scared,
for our bodies, our children.
We’re tired of hearing about another female homicide,
From men to patriarchy
From bosses to capitalism.
Our sisters,
it’s time for our voices to be heard
it’s time to fight &
to claim our rights.
For everyone in this world,
for all of us,
For life!
Viva!
(Invisible Women Manifesto)
‘Invisible Women’ is an initiative that sprang from the research team ‘Invisible Cities’ of the Department of Geography of the University of the Aegean, which includes women living or passing through Lesvos (many of them are no longer on the island).
Its original purpose was to respond to the call of Zapatista women for the Second International Conference of Women Fighting in Chiapas, Mexico in early December 2019. It was decided to send a video recording the speech of women who have been, or are trapped, in the hot spot of Moria as well as their actions against the homicides in the Aegean islands.
As part of the implementation of the video, meetings were held to discuss the call of the Zapatistas, an action of collecting voices, images and theatrical proposals and an action of joint creation of a mosaic-mural, in collaboration with Mosaik’s reuse laboratory. The process of reusing materials that seemingly are considered waste, in addition to covering real needs on the island, is highly symbolic as ‘a lot of human lives in Lesvos are characterised as ‘waste’. Therefore, changing the meaning of materials through their reuse becomes analogous to making visible women from every corner of the globe.
The video was prepared and traveled virtualy in the city of Mexico, where it was received by the Geobrujas team, which, through a convoy of 400 women on a 22-hour journey to the jungle of Lacandona, handed it over to the Zapatistas. The video sparked the opening of a communication channel with Mexican feminist collectives, a process that is still ongoing.
Violeta Dimitrakopoulou & Naya Tselepi
December 2019