Antwerp 2026

Workshop: Body-mapping with Maria Teresa Bizarria

• Guided by the feminist scholar-activist Maria Teresa Bizarria, the group engaged in a body-mapping exercise to assess their lived experiences related to patriarchal violence, and how the 2026WOMEN Project help them to process and transform those registers.
• After the mapping, the participants shared their impressions of the activity and how they feel the impact of the Project’s creative methodologies in their journey.
• The activity was an opportunity for the women to reflect deeply and to anchor our next steps in shared purpose and sisterhood.

The impression I am leaving with this workshop is the mind-body connection. I find it very important actually to not only think in my rational mind, but actually to really focus on my body as well.

There are a lot of layers on my shoulders; some of them are heavy and some of them are lifting. By being with you all in this Project, I managed to connect to what comes from the ground. And that lifts all the way to the shoulders.

Since I started singing in our workshops, I become more vocal to make my stand. I don’t feel that afraid to speak up anymore, and I believe that it is directly related to the fact that I am expressing myself loudly more often.

Workshops: Melody composition

• During the afternoon, the participants composed the melody of the two first strophes of the 2026WOMEN Tribunal hymn “United Voices” guided by Céline di Maccio.

They won’t buy us

Won’t divide us

Women for women

We are here / we are here / we are here

So fuck their / fuck their / fuck their fear

 

Gathered in a circle, by listening and being present

Our connections weave support networks

Trust between women builds sisterhood

Out on the streets we shine (shine) and spread awareness

Workshops: Cooking

• 2026WOMEN met the cooks of De Kompaan, who will cater the 2026WOMEN Tribunal, to prepare a Lebanese meal together.
• After the workshop there was a dynamic to reflect and exchanges around food and the biased place of women in the kitchen.

Workshops: Lyrics and melody composition

• During the afternoon, the participants wrote the third strophe of the 2026WOMEN Tribunal hymn “United Voices”. Assisted by Maria Teresa Bizarria, they wrote the strophes in Brazilian Portuguese, followed by melody composition guided by Céline di Maccio.

 

Gathered in a circle, by listening and being present

Our connections weave support networks

Trust between women builds sisterhood

Out on the streets we shine (shine) and spread awareness

Rehearsal for the performance ‘صوتي | Mijn Stem‘

• During the afternoon, the participants practiced the songs for the performance ‘صوتي | Mijn Stem’, guided by Céline di Maccio.

Workshop: Painting with Maya Van Treeck and Pauline Gaereynck

• Together with the members of De Kompaan, the women painted patches in food-related patterns to create a tablecloth for the canteen at the 2026WOMEN Tribunal.

Workshop: Singing with Céline di Maccio

• On the second half of the meeting, participants learned the song ‘Taxawal’ and ‘United Voices’ in Arabic, Wolof, English, French and Brazilian Portuguese.

• During the evening, we presented the 2026WOMEN project and used music to promote the upcoming 2026WOMEN Tribunal and the performance.
• We then attended a screening of Noémie Merlant’s film Les femmes au balcon (2024), followed by a discussion. In this film, we follow three flatmates in Marseille who observe the lives of their neighbours from their balcony, until one evening takes an unexpected turn.

Rehearsal for the performance ‘صوتي | Mijn Stem‘

• During the afternoon, the participants practiced the songs for the performance ‘صوتي | Mijn Stem’, guided by Céline di Maccio.

• At Coninckplein in Antwerp, 2026WOMEN joined the Collecti.e.f 8.Maars and other feminist organisations to draw attention to equal rights, respect and safety for women. Together, we marched through the city to make our voices heard and to show that real change begins when we stand in solidarity and take action.

• The 2026WOMEN were invited by Leen Nicolas to give an interview in the program dedicated to women’s tribunals called “Gerommel in de marge”. The first hour was an interview with the academic Monika Triest, who has been on the 1976 Tribunal, followed by two hours with 2026WOMEN. We presented the Tribunal and the upcoming performance ‘صوتي | Mijn Stem’, some of our songs, and interviews with partners.
• Monika Triest, Sylvia Terrenzio, Ilse Cokx (Avansa Regio Antwerpen), Els Renate Aerts (visual artist/2026WOMEN), Ida Pièret (De Kompaan), Karolien Huyge (Beweging.net), Alix Konadu (director of the 2026WOMEN performance), Céline di Maccio (Madam Fortuna/2026WOMEN), Selin Aydinol (visual artist/2026WOMEN participant)

Check the promotional video HERE!

Check the aftermovie HERE!

• Feedback session after the Mobility Week and the Tribunal to get the impressions of the participants to plan the next steps of the project.

Topic: The power structures behind sexual violence and online abuse: the “rape academy” case

Discussed issues:

• The internet enables anonymous communities that normalise abuse, domination and misogyny.
• Rape is about power, humiliation, and dehumanisation rather than sexuality.
• Patriarchy as a historical system of hierarchy and domination connected to sexism, racism and authoritarianism.
• Victim blaming remains widespread, although some felt public outrage is increasingly directed at perpetrators.
• Political leaders and public figures accused of misogyny or abuse can reinforce “permission structures” for violence.
• Trauma, emotional repression and lack of empathy can trigger violence, but there are limits of explaining violence through psychology alone.
• Institutions such as police, courts, workplaces and healthcare systems still majorly fail victims.
• Shame and silence are strong barriers preventing women from speaking out.
• Solidarity, sisterhood and feminist values can be ways to resist hierarchy and support survivors.
• Recovery goes through community support, visibility, therapy, activism and collective care.

Questions:

• • What structural patterns in the case of “rape academy” reflect broader societal realities?
  • Is the internet the cause of these forms of violence, or merely a tool?
  • Why does society continue to protect perpetrators?
  • How are women symbolically and psychologically “stripped” in modern society?
  • Are “rape academies” extreme exceptions, or inherent products of patriarchal systems?
  • How do political systems and leaders normalise misogyny and domination?
  • How should society address prevention rather than only punishment?
  • What does reclaiming strength and solidarity look like in practice?
  • How can feminism move beyond binary understandings of gender and solidarity?
  • What role should communities, institutions, and individuals play in supporting victims?

Something being illegal does not mean it stops existing.

Violence against women is often about the absence of empathy.

Our sisterhood exists because we practice feminist values of searching for equality.

Workshop: Singing with Céline di Maccio

• During the afternoon, the participants learned and practiced a new song – Yanawé – composed by Céline di Maccio. They also learned the Slovak verses of a second composition also from Céline.

Topic: The invisible weight of femininity in gender expectations and everyday inequality

Discussed issues:

• Social expectations imposed on women are felt in the societal pressure to be caring, attractive and emotionally controlled, not always out of personal choice.
• Motherhood is an expected destiny and women tend to have their choices questioned or invalidated if they do not want children.
• Unequal domestic and emotional labour are still very much present in households, with the mothers carrying nearly all the cooking, cleaning, caregiving and emotional responsibility for the family.
• Gender roles keep being reproduced through upbringing, reinforced inequality, with girls expected to help in the home and boys often excused from domestic responsibilities.
• School systems can reinforce femininity norms, placing higher behavioural and academic expectations on girls while policing girls’ appearance and sexuality more strictly than boys’.
• Religious and cultural influence have historically shaped beliefs around virginity, motherhood, obedience and women’s roles in relationships.
• In contrast, women are simultaneously expected to remain “pure” while also conforming to over-sexualised beauty standards.
• Media-driven beauty standards spread unrealistic portrayals of women in films, toys, social media and advertising that promote insecurity and body dissatisfaction.
• Masculinity and lack of domestic education push boys to not engage with their emotions and the domestic sphere, leading many men to behave “like guests in the house”.
• Intergenerational change and resistance was pointed as key in raising future generations differently and challenging normalised inequality within families and relationships.

Questions:

• • Which expectations about being a woman have been inherited?
  • Which stories or institutions have shaped our idea of femininity?
  • Which ideas about femininity from earlier times do we still recognise today?
  • Why is motherhood still treated as central to womanhood?
  • How are unequal gender roles passed on across generations?
  • What would real equality look like in relationships and domestic life?

My existence or my choices are invalidated because there’s this social expectation that every female body exists to bear a child.

We got work with the feminist wave in the 70’s, but we got double work.

I grew up afraid of expressing femininity. I was scared of my own body.

Workshop: Singing with Céline di Maccio

During the afternoon, the participants practiced ‘Yanawé’ composed by Céline di Maccio. They also learned the Slovak verses of a second composition.