Photo by Michele Grace Hunder

When Women Speak of War ‘they say nothing or almost nothing of what we are used to reading and hearing about’.

These words from Ukraine-born giant of testimonial literature Svetlana Alexievich spurred our event into existence. When Women Speak of War what they make visible, what they make us see and hear anew, are worlds away from narrow conceptions of war that erase the suffering and survival of many.

In solidarity with Ukraine, FOJAM’s (Festival of Jewish Arts and Music) last event When Women Speak of War : Artists Reckon with Wars Declared and Hidden, musicians, writers and performers grappled with how we commemorate and memorialise the Holocaust, genocide and war in a theatrical collaboration at The National Theatre in St Kilda, Melbourne on the lands of the Yalukit-Willam Clan on Boon Wurrung Country.