On 2 October, 2024, as part of our collaboration with three organizations from Diyarbakır; Mesopotamia Foundation, the Middle East Cinema Academy Association, and Amed City Theatre, we held a deeply moving focus group meeting with Kurdish refugee women in Germany. Our researcher Fatma Çelik, who conducted in-depth interviews with the women, transcribed the recordings and produced a draft based on their personal stories. Before the focus group, the women had a chance to read the text and came together for the first time to discuss it. The meeting was filled with meaningful connections, as women – some still in camps, others balancing childcare and household responsibilities – spent two hours sharing their stories and connecting in ways that transcended their everyday challenges. By the end, the foundation of a support network began to emerge. While many recognized their own stories in the draft, many were surprised at how the text felt like it belonged to a single woman.
The text will be available on our PubPub platform. Moving forward, the insights from this focus group will contribute to developing a theater play that incorporates and explores these shared experiences in depth.
Following the focus group, the project hosted a two-day theater workshop, Hayattan Kurmacaya (From Life to Fiction), which attracted considerable interest from the theater community, with a total of 30 participants from both Diyarbakır and Germany. Held online, the workshop featured two accomplished theater directors: Süreyya Karacabey (30 October) and Anina Jendreyko (31 October). The sessions delved into the theoretical and ethical considerations of adapting personal narratives into performance, providing a collaborative space for participants to reflect on the storytelling process and how such sensitive histories might be effectively, respectfully, and artistically transformed for the stage.
This collaboration was developed and realized as part of the VAHA programme. While we continue to work on the publication, our partners in Diyarbakır are actively seeking funding to develop the theater play and produce a documentary based on the project. This initiative not only demonstrated the potential of artistic research to bring communities together but also reinforced our commitment to elevating marginalized voices through creative, ethical, and collaborative methods.
VAHA is an initiative of Anadolu Kültür and zusa, funded by Stiftung Mercator and the European Cultural Foundation. We thank Chrest Foundation for its support.
