Untitled - Narodowe Centrum Kultury

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We, the Women
of Muranów
We, the Women of Muranów
was a cross-generational
historico-cultural project
completed at the turn of
2010 in the Warsaw district
of Muranów in the UFA
centre of feminist and queer
culture, coordinated by Halina
Kowalska, Natalia Judzińska
and Joanna Tomiak. The main
objective of the project was to
encourage social participation
of women over 55. Weekly
sessions included history
lectures offering a feminist
perspective, photography
workshops, walks through
the district in the footsteps of
women, and movie screenings.
t
he idea to undertake a crossgenerational
project came to
us after the UFA moved to the
Warsaw district of Muranów, where most of
our neighbours were senior citizens. We concluded
it was high time to run a project aimed
at this group.
the project
The project had two parallel parts: theoretical
and practical. We thought that this format
would be the most suitable for senior
citizens. Participants first learned the theory
of photography and history, and then put
them to practice, taking photos and creating
an emotional map of their area. But the most
important for us as a group were meetings in
which we shared our life stories, views and
experiences in various fields. These conversations
were the main reason we developed
a unique cross-generational bond that
has survived to this day. We worked together
for several months to create an emotional
map of Muranów, where each of us marked
places that were important to us and talked
about them. At the final stage of the project,
we unveiled the map at a special event and
held a photography exhibition, inviting our
families and friends. This experience was
very important to us. It brought us closer together.
Another important thing was the recognition
that official history does not have to
be only the history of brave men but also of
ordinary people including women.
target groups / methods
Our target group were women aged over 55,
most of them residents of Muranów. Over the
course of the project we worked with over 20
participants. The group was identified as victims
of multiple discrimination: due to their
sex, age and, in the case of some of them,
economic status. We chose to apply methods
developed by the UFA collective. We decided
to propose that the group be non-hierarchical
and that the decision process concerning
the direction of the project be based on compromise.
The project was unconventional,