HOW TO DO INTERSECTIONAL ECOFEMINISMS. Dialogues between Artists, Academics and Activists

This year's symposium of the International Women*'s Theater Festival 2025 is dedicated to intersectional ecofeminism in art, theater, activism, and science. It examines how feminist perspectives can be linked to struggles for environmental and climate justice as well as social justice in order to open up new paths for a sustainable and caring future. International and local artists, scientists, and activists are invited to share their experiences, methods, and perspectives and bring them into dialogue.

Over the course of two days, there will be panel discussions, interactive workshops, and presentations. One focus will be on the impact of ecological crises on women* and marginalized groups, as well as on how art, science, and activism can make these visible and initiate transformations. Participants will be encouraged to explore how we can care for “more-than-human” worlds, how intersectional ecofeminist practices can be implemented, and what experiences and knowledge colonized, gendered, and racialized bodies carry within them that initiate and expand ecofeminist practices. Participants are invited to contribute their own experiences, to jointly develop practices for intersectional ecofeminism, but also to reflect on the limits and ambivalences of these practices. 

In particular, we ask ourselves how methods from art, science, and activism unfold their effects and how science and artistic practice inspire each other. 

Special attention is paid to the visibility of BIPoC women* and other marginalized groups on and behind the stage, as well as in academia. Intergenerational dialogue is actively promoted: experienced artists, including those from The Magdalena Project Network, contribute their experiences. 

In this sense, the 9th symposium is the highlight of our festival debate so far. As in previous years, we continue to seek ways to change the patriarchal, Eurocentric narrative of theater-making by responding to a variety of feminist voices and collectively forging bonds of solidarity. One focus is on the exchange between different generations about their experiences with the stage as a performative space for an anti-racist, queer, and eco-feminist social utopia. 

With a view to self-defining our own artistic work, the symposium of the International Women's Theater Festival 2025 will address the following questions:

• What does intersectional ecofeminism mean to us?
• To what extent do I incorporate ideas from ecofeminist-intersectional theories into my work?
• What experiences and knowledge do colonized, gendered, and racialized bodies as well as intergenerational perspectives bring to ecofeminist practices?
• How can the relationship between science, art, and activism be described? What impulses from art and activism transform scientific findings, and vice versa? Which methods have which effects?

Confirmed speakers:

• Sophie von Redecker (PhD candidate in Ecological Agricultural Sciences at the University of Kassel-Witzenhausen and Justus Liebig University Giessen)
• Franziska von Verschuer (PhD in Sociology at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
• Alba Cristina Soares-Ya Darabi (artist and Yalorixá)
• Bárbara Luci Carvalho (artistic director of IF*TF, protagon e.V.)
• Helen Varley Jamieson (theater maker and digital artist, The Magdalena Project)
• Johanna Leinius (social scientist, scientific manager of the Cornelia Goethe Center for Gender Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
• Julia Varley (Odin Teatret, The Magdalena Project)
• Regina Busch (theater maker, board member of laPROF Hessen e.V.)
• Betânia Ramos Schröder (photojournalist, sociologist, and editor)
• Possibly one additional person. TBA

Languages: English/German/Spanish/Portuguese

Additional speakers:

... include artists participating in the festival, experts on feminist, decolonial, migration, and human rights issues, and anyone else who feels their voice should be heard in this context.

Allies and interested parties are warmly invited to listen, contribute their thoughts, and ask questions.