Convention of Women Farmers

Marwa Arsanios

In light of the urgency on the climate change issue, and while governments and corporations have been ignoring it for decades now without wanting (most often) to take any responsibility on the matter, women farmers have been mobilising their means and knowledge to carry out the work of repair. I believe this kind of resistance front to climate change should be enhanced, learned from and worked with intensively.

How do these communities of farmers, each in their own context, organise their communal life and live together with nature and non-human species while maintaining a certain power balance and without disrupting each other’s ecologies? If one also thinks about the land, and the possibility for this land to be cured from a history of marginalisation, mistreatment and drought, what can one imagine as ways to cure this land? How can the land offer a possibility for a “worker” of the land to approach, re-work and repair the land, while at the same time repairing oneself, one’s own body and relationship to the earth.

This convention will take the form of an assembly bringing together women farmers from Syria, Lebanon, Mexico, India, Poland, Denmark and Greece, where they will be asked to exchange knowledge around their various cooperatives and communes in general, and their agricultural tools and methodologies in particular.

The assembly will unfold into public presentations and in conversation with ecofeminists, philosophers, scientists and climate activists.

The conclusion will consist of a screening of two parts of Marwa Arsanios’ film Who is afraid of ideology?, as well as the concert of a group Kompost. The Convention will be accompanied by the choral commentary of the Polin Choir which is one of the constituting elements of the polyphonic manifesto for the future – a musical piece that will be heard in its entirety on 23 June.

Konwencja rolniczek – zaproszenie

Wzmacniamy front oporu wobec zmian klimatycznych! Razem z Marwa Arsanios oraz ekorolniczkami z Syrii, Libanu, Meksyku, Kolumbii, Francji i Polski odnawiamy związek z Ziemią i pytamy, czy „uprawiając” ziemię mamy szanse na jej „naprawę”.Sobotnia Konwencja rolniczek, projekcja nowego filmu Marwy Arsanios "Kto się boi ideologii?" oraz koncert zespołu Kompost to tylko część wydarzeń w ramach rozpoczynającego się dziś na Zorganizujmy swoją przyszłość! — Biennale Warszawa 2019 bloku związanego ze środowiskiem. Zapraszamy!

Opublikowany przez Biennale Warszawa Czwartek, 13 czerwca 2019

Program

10:00-10:30 | Start and introduction by Marwa Arsanios and Anna Galas-Kosil
10:30-11:15 | Key Note: Ariel Salleh
 
11:15-12:15 | FOOD POLITICS
11:15-11:30 | Dorota Metera (expert in ecological farming and its regulations)
11:30-11:45 | Ewa Smuk-Stratanwerth (founder of Ekologiczny Universytet Ludowy / Ecological Folk High School)
11:45-12:05 | Khadija Chahine (Bekaa Cooperative)
12:05-12:20 | Discussion
 
12.20-12.35 | Coffee break
 
12:35-13:45 | SEED AUTONOMY (SEEDS PRESENTATION AND EXCHANGE)
12:35-13:05 | Samanta Arango Orozco and Mercy Vera (Grupo Semillas Colombia)
12:05-13:25 | Monika Podsiadła (Ogrody Permakultury)
13:25-13:40 | Discussion
 
13:40 – 15:00: Lunch break
 
15:00-15:55 | LAND, AUTONOMY AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY
15:00-15:20 | Yasemin Andan (Kurdish Autonomous Women’s Movement)
15:20-15:40 | Maria Estela Barco Huerta (Chiapas)
15:40-15:55 | Discussion
 
15:55-16:10 | Coffee break
 
16:10-17:00 | SOIL HEALTH; GENDER AGROECOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
16:10-16:30 | Mama D Ujuaje (Community Centred Knowledge), Assembling Justice: the entitlements of the Pluriverse
16:30-16:45 | Paula Gioia (La Via Campesina)
16:45-17:00 | Joanna Bojczewska (Nyeleni Polska – Movement for Food Sovereignty in Poland)
17:00-18:00 | Final discussion and wrap up (summary by Ariel Salleh)
 
18:00-19:30 | Technical break
 
19:30-20:20 | Movie screening „Who is afraid of ideology?” by Marwa Arsanios
20:30-21:30 | COMPOST (concert)