The Words We Don’t Yet Have

Every revolution is also a revolution of words. A new world has to be described and narrated in its complex diversity and with its lights and shadows. The feminist struggle has also been an effort to find ways of saying what has not been named or described before, to break old silences and generate new alliances, to ask questions that have not been asked, and to recognise that the personal is also, in fact, collective and political. In a famous speech, the African-American poet Audre Lorde urged her listeners to transform silence into words and action because only when we speak for ourselves can we take part in creating the world we share.

This lecture cycle is an invitation to think about some of the key ideas of feminism that are part of our political vocabulary today while also bearing in mind that the terrain of what has not yet been said or has been silenced is still vast, and there are many people who are struggling to find the words with which to tell their stories. The programme for the exhibition “Feminisms!” includes lectures, debates, and recitals with the voices of some of today’s leading feminists.