Current Projects (2024-25)

CONNECTING SILENT VOICES

CONNECTING SILENT VOICES is an artistic collaboration between BILOURA Intercultural Arts Collective from Italy, DanceBeyondBorders from Malta, WomanUp from Bulgaria and Artpolis from Kosovo, focusing on the topic of marginalisation and exploitation of women in the sex industry. It aims to raise awareness and empower communities to create actions as well as to create visibility, debate and inclusion through art on a very marginalised and veiled topic.

The project will tour the dance performance ‘SILENT VOICES’ and create activities in collaboration with local communities, activist groups and NGOs through workshops, public debates and fundraising campaigns in each country. The dance performance on tour is the fruit of a six-year artistic research project around sexual exploitation of women that has visited many places and collected even more testimonies. What emerged as an urgency is the extreme silence and marginalisation that surrounds these women. Therefore, ‘CONNECTING SILENT VOICES’ will focus on facilitating vibrant exchanges with local communities where women take a central role in debates and discussions, voice their opinions and engage in meaningful dialogue. The aim is to empower them by having their voices heard in their fight against sexual exploitation, marginalisation, and stigmatisation.

Perform Europe Grant

EUR 60,000

Partners

BILOURA Intercultural Arts Collective

Artistic Works

SILENT VOICES

Producers: Asia Culture Center

text

A reflection on the female body as an object of trade, pleasure, and pain, ‘SILENT VOICES’ addresses the issue of sexual exploitation on a global scale, a phenomenon deeply rooted in patriarchal culture and closely linked to economic exploitation of the fragile and underprivileged. Choosing to deal artistically with this uncomfortable, half-hidden yet huge topic has an ethical urgency. It is a poignant, problematic theme; it sheds light on open wounds and its rawness is deeply affecting because it is not far from us; it puts us in front of the mirror.

Through dance, visual art and soundscapes, the performance addresses a complex topic with subtlety. It shines a spotlight on the lives behind and beyond exploitation: the voices of sex workers, social workers and human rights activists convey the feelings, emotions, and reflections on which the performance is built. They lead the spectator into an intimate space, where political themes are transcribed in the personal, dancing on the bodies of the performers, resonating in the space like a mood, peeking through a hole in the wall. ‘SILENT VOICES’ is an invitation to watch, to listen, to get closer to some of the most marginalised stories and people in the world