Women of All Winds
A story similar on the first sight to the knitting project in Jesenice was presented to us by Anka Pintar and Nina Arnuš from the Zavod Tri institute, based in the small town of Škofja Loka, nearby Ljubljana. Anka and Nina volunteered in an asylum centre and worked with Albanian-speaking immigrants. It brought them to formalise their work in Zavod Tri, a non-profit organisation encouraging and implementing sustainable community practises. Their projects attract immigrant women from the former Yugoslav republics, who are usually socially excluded. Zavod Tri do not only seek to “help” the women, but also to bring the inhabitants of Škofja Loka closer to them, the integration is hence twofold.
One of the many embroidered and knitted graffiti hanging in the streets, on the buildings and fences in Škofja Loka is:
“If you are gentle, you are strong.”
Through their project, called Interweaving – Inclusive Communities in Loško, the women tied the threads of friendship while learning Slovenian, integrating into the local community, socialising, and, of course, doing art.
The goal was not only to integrate women through art, but also to promote community participation. Hence, hanging their thoughts and sayings in public spaces in participants’ mother tongues. The graffiti in Macedonian, Serbian, Albanian, Bosnian, English, and Slovenian now remind the community of the diversity that surrounds them.
The graffiti were well received by the locals, sometimes people would add one, while others would disappear. Yet, Anka stresses that they take this as a compliment, not vandalism. The graffiti campaigns continue. Some aim to convey a sense of community during the epidemic and increasing social distance, others seek to show that people from different cultural backgrounds, languages, and dialects can cohabit. To summarise, graffiti has the means to promote interculturalism and the integration of immigrant women.
URB_ART spoke with Anka Pintar, co (head) of Zavod Tri (www.zavod-tri.org), an artist and social worker involved in ventures that combine creativity and social activism. The Tri Institute is a non-governmental organisation for sustainable community practises with the focus on empowering women from all parts of the world and developing collaborative processes within the community.
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