About

Rather than speaking for them, laying out their struggles and joys, we wanted to give them their own voice. We focus on nine women, who quickly became icons for us, living proof of the strength that courses through the women of this region.

From Tirana to Banja Luka, from a mine to a workshop, the ordinary lives of these extraordinary women show the most intimate side of the Balkan region.

As their story unfolds, their pride at being a woman shines through. An optimistic, dazzling pride. A pride forged in the fight against a patriarchy that wanted to keep them silent, stopped them playing football, sent them back to the kitchen or motherhood, mocked their skills.

A patriarchy that was nevertheless forced to give them some rights – the right to vote (1946, 1947), control over their bodies (1974 in Yugoslavia), the right to work. Within these freedoms, they carved a space — one that, in some places, now feels once again under threat.

They are judged by everyone. Their brothers, their husbands, whole countries: tourists who find their skirts too short, their eyelashes too long to be feminist. Those who think they don’t smile enough or that their clothes are too rough for them to feel joy. Judgement is everywhere. It has weighed on their lives but they have overcome, with extraordinary strength.

In this exhibition, they reveal their world: their workshop, their garage, their basement. They pose, sometimes playfully, with what society expects a woman to be — like a second skin that chafes, that never quite fits, and from which they can only escape with courage and reinvention.

From freedom to appearance, from motherhood to protest, from the domestic to the economic sphere, their voices come together to give a rounded idea of what it means to be a woman in the Balkans — and, perhaps, anywhere.

In 2026, giving voice to fifty percent of humanity remains a political act. We hope, sincerely, that theirs will be heard.