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< ABOUT >

This campaign primarily aims at raising awareness around the resistance movement currently taking place in the cantons of #Rojava (located in northern Syria), where women participate on all levels of decision making and building a new society from scratch, with built-in social, racial and ethnic justice, religious freedom, ecological principles and gender equality. Despite vast cultural and historical differences between Western countries and Kurdistan, the campaign uses art & music to bridge these and build long-lasting real-life connections based on dialogue and respect, involving as many Kurdish musicians and activists as possible.

female:pressure raise awareness for the women of Rojava, their struggle, ideas and implementations on the ground including famously defeating areas captured by the Islamic State. Mass media have been silent and struggle to report on the Kurdish region and the complex issues, due to the danger it holds through IS, war, airstrikes by Russia, USA and allies and the Turkish war on Kurds. As the PKK is officially named as a terrorist organisation (e.g. by USA & the EU), many global and European news platforms do not report at all or if so, with a large bias in favour of Turkey's current government. The campaign aims to activate a dialogue, solidarity with women in war, investigate further into these complex issues and not to stay stagnant with inaction to the detriment of huge number of human rights violations in the area. The challenges addressed are huge: extremely complex global politics and economics, post-colonial challenges of war, systematic prejudice & inequality, corruption, terrorism, fundamentalism, the role of the women in society. Awareness is necessary to activate critical reflection and action, the female:pressure network can help activate this.

< BANDCAMP COMPILATION >

Happy International Women's Day! For March 8th 2016 we have selected 12 tracks from the submissions to our call for a new bandcamp compilation. All revenue will go directly to the women of Rojava to build a women's village on location called JINWAR - village of free women.

< CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS >

female:pressure is launching an awareness and solidarity campaign for the cantons of #Rojava (located in northern Syria), where women participate on all levels of decision making and building a new society from scratch, with built-in social, racial and ethnic justice, religious freedom, ecological principles and gender equality. With a series of music, media and sound art to listen, dance and fight to, we would like to send our love and strength to these women and spread a positive message in support of their efforts.

We are calling for participation and submission of works. The work must be related and critically deal with the topic of #Rojava; otherwise there are no restrictions. Everybody is welcome! Please submit your works via Internet Archive https://archive.org or any other way which can be embedded and distributed online such as Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Tumblr, Vimeo, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter or others.

IMPORTANT: please tag everything with #femalepressure for #rojava #revolution #solidarity

Spread and share the cause.

Send an informal email with the link to your submission to: rojava@femalepressure.net

The final publication is planned for International Women's Day on 8 March 2016. Deadline for our CTM presentation was 20 January 2016. New deadline for a final publication on 8 March is 29 February 2016!

female:pressure is looking for Kurdish musicians, sound curators and cultural organisers to collaborate.

Founded in 1998, female:pressure is an international network of over 1,600 female artists from 66 countries [as at February 2016] in the broader fields of electronic music and arts.

You never walk alone!

< SELECTED SUBMISSIONS >

From the liner notes of "Women & The Gun":
"In the revolution of Rojava, a practical defense of women's rights and the safety of women is ensured through the YPJ (People's Protection Units). The Daesh (or I.S. for Islamic State) has from the very beginning of this war addressed its attacks on regions where Kurds mainly live, such as Schengal, Mosul, Raka, Heseke, Serekani, Kobani and Aleppo. Kurdish women, on the other hand, have taken on a leadership role in the defense against these attacks. With their identity as women of many ethnicities, the women have been present in all areas of the fight in Rojava. Women have also jointly begun a revolution socially and politically in Syria and Rojava and expand this more every day.

"To understand the revolution in Rojava and the role of women in it, one has to be aware of the history of Kurdish movement and especially of the role of PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) in Kurdistan. What's happening there is based on more than 30 years of ideological work in both theoretical and practical aspects. Apart from a justified, self organized, armed struggle of women in Kurdistan against colonizing, oppressive regimes in this area (Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria), they have also done the same political work on a societal level to create awareness of the importance of the women's role in the revolutionary discourse.

"Rojava is a chance for the whole world, especially for women and white feminism, to finally understand that the fight for women is nothing else than the struggle for revolution and justice, and the women there are a role model for us. They are building a society where women even write their revolutionary history, a history that until now has ignored the power of women. They have their destiny in their hand. Let us look to Rojava for getting hope for our lost world, and energy to continue our fight for a better life."

--> Sky Deep and Hevî are friends from two completely different worlds yet somehow, this song is a result of our worlds and passions combined. This song was born from the internal journeys that happen within the external environments that we endure everyday of our existence. It is a special moment when two people come together with intersecting journeys that result in art PLUS activism. We work towards freedom every day. This song is a piece of our soul. Hope lives in these frequencies.

< POSTERS >

Posters by Marine Drouan, female:pressure #Rojava logo by Alessandra Leone. Click on images for large versions:

< PRESS REVIEW >

Please find a collection of articles about our #Rojava project on our blog: femalepressure.wordpress.com/press-review

< CTM DISCOURSE >

Music, Awareness & Solidarity for #Rojava

We presented our #Rojava project at CTM Festival at Kunsthaus Bethanien, Berlin, on 6 February 2016, 1:30 pm CET: archived femalepressure #rojava event:

In December 2015, female:pressure launched a campaign to raise awareness and generate a debate on issues around solidarity with resistance movement currently taking place in the cantons of #Rojava (western Kurdistan, located in northern Syria), where women participate on all levels of decision making and building a new society from scratch, with built-in social, racial and ethnic justice, religious freedom, ecological principles and gender equality.

With a series of music, media and sound art to listen, dance and fight to, female pressure would like to offer love and strength to these women, men and children and spread a positive message in support of their efforts.

female:pressure is an anarchistic open grass-root organisation founded in 1998, is an international network of over 1,600 female artists from 65 countries in the broader fields of electronic music and arts.

At the CTM event Hevî who recently visited Rojava, will explain the background of the original struggle in the regions and share her thoughts on the role of art in this context. Ipek ipekcioglu will introduce her body of work and present her submission of a collaboration with Kurdish singer Sakina. We will listen to Sky Deep's submission featuring Hevî and she will present her work and thought process behind the piece. We will premier a video work by Olivia Louvel which deals with the women's militaristic struggle and attitudes.

Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF) and Annie Goh will lead the discussions and event.

The discussion will be opened after 45 min and the aim is to discuss what we can learn from #Rojava, the role of art and music in the context of violent political struggle, how to show solidarity and create awareness using international networks such as female:pressure and the overall meaning of a campaign such as this.

Panel participants:

The pseudonym Hevî means "hope" in Kurdish. She is an activist who recently spent some time in Rojava. She sees art as a tool to transform feelings and experiences, only meaningful when inherently connected to resistance. The resistance in Kurdistan is art, in the sense of life. Hope is the other name for resistance. Hevî embodies the stateless democracy principle and therefore does not want to be identified by nationality.

Ipek Ipekcioglu is a Berlin & Istanbul-based queer music producer, DJ and curator. She focuses on contemporary socio-political issues of everyday life, transporting them into her music. She is well-known for her collaborations with Kurdish musicians in Turkey and worldwide such as Aynur Dogan, Sivan Perwer, Sakina Teyna, Bajar, Adir Jam and Hogir Goregen. Ipek has a political agenda related to womyn, immigrant and queer issues. In all musical events she has curated and participated in, she maintains a principle of cultural diversity. Ipek has been invited to take part at the first international Music Festival in the autonomous canton South Kurdistan in Northern Iraq.

Antye Greie-Ripatti, i.e. AGF:poemproducer, is a digital songwriter, sound composer, poet, curator, and educator. Born in East Germany, she has been living and working in Hailuoto, Finland since 2008. As active member of female.pressure she has initiated the VISIBILITY compaign, realized the Nergirls collection and mix and the "Solidarity & Awareness with Rojava" campaign.

Sky Deep is a Producer, DJ, Musician and Live Performer. She has been producing music for more than 10 years. Now living in Berlin, she has lived half her life in NYC and Los Angeles. She has DJ'd and played live throughout the US and Europe. Additionally, her performances and tracks have been featured on VH1, NBC and UPN. In 2012, she launched Reveller Records from her Brooklyn apartment and has continued managing it in Berlin.

Annie Goh is an artist, researcher and educator working primarily with sound, space, gender and electronic media and their social and cultural contexts. Currently based in London and Berlin, she is a lecturer at Berlin University of Arts and a PhD student at Goldsmiths University, London. She has guest curated at the discourse program of CTM Festival since 2013.

< BACKGROUND LINKS >

No Friends [but the mountains]
https://vimeo.com/257718365

Stand with Rojava, oppose Turkey's war
https://roarmag.org/essays/stand-rojava-oppose-turkeys-war

Nobel Laureates call to end the solitary confinement of Öcalan and all political prisoners in Turkey
https://dialogo2000.blogspot.com/2019/01/nobel-laureates-call-to- end-solitary.html

Rahila Gupta at the EU Parliament's 14th International Conference on the EU, Turkey, the Middle East and the Kurds
http://web.guengl. streamovations.be/index.php/event/stream/the-european-union-turkey-the-middle-east-and-the-kurds-part-2 [starting at min 21:31 in the video]

Radical Democracy: The First Line Against Fascism
https://roarmag.org/magazine/dilar-dirik-kurdish-anti-fascism

Während der türkische Staat in Richtung Diktatur schreitet, lebt in Rojava noch die Hoffnung
https://kontrast-blog.at/ waehrend-der-tuerkische-staat-in-richtung-diktatur-schreitet-lebt-in-rojava-noch-die-hoffnung

Rojava Revolution
https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/evangelos-aretaios/ rojava-revolution

@RojWomen
https://twitter.com/RojWomen

Western fascination with 'badass' Kurdish women
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/ 2014/10/western-fascination-with-badas-2014102112410527736.html

These Remarkable Women Are Fighting ISIS
http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a6643/these-are-the-women- battling-isis

The society that doesn't elevate itself will decay
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/a-dream-of-utopia-in-hell.html

Rojava: A democratic system in progress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_dchu1i8cs

Die Selbstverwaltungsstrukturen in Rojava - über Hintergrund, Entstehung und Realität
http://bookfair.blogsport.eu/files/2015/09/kobane-karakoek.pdf

#WHYSYRIA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJtUQjJC4a0

Dilar Dirik: The Kurdish Women's Movement
https://www.amazon.com/Kurdish-Womens-Movement-History-Practice/dp/0745341934

Rojava vs the World: The radical fight for survival, independence and freedom
https://soundcloud.com/this-is-hell/837dilardirik

To Make a World, Part III: Stateless Democracy
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/to-make-a-world-part-iii-stateless- democracy

Hystereo #18 - Riot Grrls and Rojava
https://www.mixcloud.com/BCR_Radio/hystereo-18-riot-grrls-and-rojava