The British Council believes that gender equality and women’s empowerment are crucial to creating inclusive, open and prosperous societies.
In support of this, we have initiated a three-year programme in 2017 - Women and Leadership in Arts and Culture – the purpose of which is to support and work with the women professionals in creative sectors, women artists and actors working on the field of gender equality.
The launch of the programme took place on 12 April 2018 with the participation of Jude Kelly CBE, the Artistic Director of Southbank Centre and the Founding Director of WOW – Women of the World Festival and WOW Foundation. After the launch where the Women Power in Culture research results were shared, the programme was sustained with the women leaders’ professional development experiences in the UK, the public programmes they started after returning to Turkey, Think Ins and WOW Warm Up talks organized in advance of WOW - Women of the World Festival Istanbul and Women Power in Culture Grant Scheme. The programme continued with the radio programme at Açık Radio as the pre-event of the WOW Festival Istanbul that was initiated on 5-6-7 March 2021 with the Sabancı Foundation. The next and the first physical edition of the festival was initiated on 19-20 March 2022 at Müze Gazhane with support from the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality. Festival’s third edition was initiated with a delegation model on 2-3 March 2024 at Beykoz Kundura in partnership with Beykoz Kundura.
WOW Istanbul has uniquely been converging the arts and culture world with civil society to celebrate women and girls, fostering collaborations to address women’s issues. Utilizing the transformative power of art, the festival has been stimulating novel perspectives and inclusive forums for reflection and dialogue. Implementing the distinctive methodology of the WOW Foundation, as a member of the WOW Globals, WOW Istanbul festivals have been showcasing creatives elevating the role of the arts in positively influencing perceptions of gender equality. The festivals have hosted Armenian, Kurdish, Syrian, queer, and feminist Muslim as well as Turkish and UK speakers, workshop leaders and artists as creative professionals and civil rights activists. Up to 1000 provided input to the festival and 76 NGOs participated in the last 3 editions.
The music programming of WOW Istanbul, My City My Voice, starting with its second edition in 2022, continued to prosper in 2023 and 2024, also in Manchester and Istanbul. A total of 55 women identified musicians from İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Muğla, Balıkesir, Bursa, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, Kocaeli as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia participated to the programme, completing online music production training by Kreşendo and having the opportunity of being mentored by UK musicians Mandy Wigby, Lizzy Ellis from Saffron Music, Natalia Mamcarczyk (aka Walya), and Kate Lowes, Holly Phelps, Lucy Wallace and IORA of Brighter Sound, Manchester.
WOWsers Istanbul, initiated by IKSV Altkat, created a young women's choir in collaboration with the Vocal Academy, training 95 women identified musicians in the 2022 and 2024 editions who performed at the festival.
WOW İstanbul has been able to attract audiences of different age groups, and varied educational and socio-economic backgrounds with its inclusive programming transforming the norms of the arts audiences reaching out to more than 3 million in the digital edition and a total of 10,000 face-to-face in the last two editions. Working with accessibility consultants, WOW Istanbul Festivals has committed to enabling the participation of diverse audiences where in the last edition, 16% used accessibility tools.
WOW Istanbul has simply become our call of action to women and girls to be together and listen to ‘others’.
