Women of the World (WOW) Festival İstanbul
Background
WOW is a festival that celebrates women and girls and takes a look at the obstacles they face across the world.
WOW festivals uniquely converge the arts and culture world with civil society to celebrate women and girls, fostering fresh collaborations to address women’s issues. Utilising the transformative power of art, the festival stimulates novel perspectives and inclusive forums for reflection and dialogue. Implementing the distinctive methodology of the WOW Foundation, WOW Istanbul creates safe spaces through talks, workshops, performances, food, music, movement and mentoring. The events showcase creatives elevating the role of the arts in positively influencing perceptions of gender equality.
Programme overview
The British Council has an international partnership with the WOW Foundation and has partnered to support WOW festivals around the world. The British Council’s global network of offices and local staff, combined with our unique insight into the UK arts and culture scene, make us the ideal partner to implement WOW festivals that embrace local cultures and communities and make new connections with the UK, whilst still maintaining the unique format WOW is famous for.
Commencing as a digital festival in the pandemic, WOW Istanbul transitioned into an in-person event from 2022 to 2024. Since 2020, we've collaborated with the WOW Foundation, Sabancı Foundation, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Müze Gazhane, Beykoz Kundura, the British Embassy Turkey, Erişilebilir Herşey (Accessible Everything), Kreşendo, IKSV Alt Kat and Pozitif to organise, facilitate, secure venues, and ensure accessibility for the WOW Festival.
Programme components
Turkey has been included in the WOW Global’s family as of 2020 and showcased its two-hour digital input to WOW Global 24 that the WOW Foundation has initiated as the first global, open access festival of 24 hours online on 27-28 June 2020. The same year, the British Council initiated a new radio show ‘Festival Arena’ at Açık Radio as the preliminary programme of the WOW - Women of the World Festival Istanbul, broadcasted from 11 May to 26 October 2020. The following year, the British Council brought together the WOW Foundation and the Sabancı Foundation to run the first Women of the World Festival Istanbul on the digital realm of www.wowistanbul.org on 5-7 March 2021. The festival, with the theme of Seeing the City through Women’s Gaze, shared women’s stories through music, performance, discussion and debate giving voice to women from all over Turkey and being accessible to all on the digital. In 2022, the first face-to-face WOW Istanbul Festival was realised in collaboration with the Istanbul Municipality at Müze Gazhane on 19-20 March 2022.
The results
- WOW Istanbul has reached 3 million viewers from 81 cities in Turkey and eight other countries with its first digital edition.
- From 2022 to 2024, WOW Festival Istanbul attracted close to 10.000 people and reached over 15 million in total with its media and press coverage.
- In Civil Place, we have collaborated with more than 50 creative communities and non-governmental organisations to gain further insights into their work and projects.
‘(The festival) made us feel like we weren't alone. It was a chance for us to communicate with people one-on-one. It had a really converging impact. We are a larger community than we think. (…) it was an event that was empowering, and we felt solidarity.’ - Umami Book and Publishing, Civil Place