Revealing women’s lives and words across boundaries

Writing this book has become a necessity in this time of climate change and worldwide instability, of the war to control women’s bodies, of the increase in the number of femicides and the progressive elimination of women’s fundamental rights (including of minorities) throughout the world. This reality exists because of a system of control that goes beyond the question of laws. Through our work which integrates writing, art and our civil engagement, we have transnationally explored the precariousness of the lives of women. This book follows the same approach.

We believe that images and words intersect and shed light on those who are invisible, little heard or never heard. Our artist’s photographs peer into the darkness and capture notions often difficult to perceive in the discourse and the silence of women. The poetry and written texts of the poets and writers in our organisation highlight the subtle interactions between dominant and colonized groups and incite cultural memory so that we can make sense of our present.

Our book has been conceived as a patchwork of transnational experiences, of struggles and analyses that deal with violence against women, including femicide. Representation of human beings is synonymous with visibility and therefore the opportunity to be heard and seen. In fact, as Hannah Arendt points out, when people are objectified, they can be eliminated; if a human being is not recognized by society, this person is an object and can be killed. Conscience or moral responsibility is annihilated. Our mission is to make visible the invisible violence against women. The aim is to confer on the individual or the group an identity and a face.