The Golden Oak and Other Stories About Resilience
Practical insights and discussion with the authors and illustrators (GER/AR/ES/PL/PR/TR)

With Mädchen Machen Druck, moderated by Karen Michelsen Castañón (art educator and artist)

Behind this book lies a long-term collaboration among our network of women from different backgrounds, generations and perspectives. What unites us is our commitment to outrage, utopias and the joy of learning and growing together. Each of us is a storyteller, author and illustrator: one person tells a true story from their life, a second person writes it down in their own form – as a letter, poem or story – and a third person transforms it into an image. This interplay of “triangular stories” has resulted in this special book for girls and young women. If you ask, “Whose story is this?”, we answer, “Mine, ours – and now yours, too.” You can also write and illustrate your own story. We invite you to discover how a single experience can become a shared story. We have 20 copies of this special book that we would like to give away to girls and young women attending the event.

The Mädchen machen Druck project is part of the Frauen Machen Druck network. We worked with young people, especially female migrants. We organised workshops, listened to one another, shared experiences and passed on what we had learned. This book is part of that: it is intended to encourage, give hope and show resilience. It is a sign that no one is alone, that our voices count, and that together we can find answers.

Frauen machen Druck is an open printing workshop space for those who identify as women in Berlin. Women are actively involved in its co-administration and co-organisation. The participants come from diverse linguistic backgrounds, social classes and age groups, and have varied national and migration histories. It is a network of more than 100 women. Frauen machen Druck has already had two exhibitions at the Käthe Kollwitz Museum and Savvy Contemporary in Berlin. Their most recent exhibition, Frauen porträtieren Frauen (Women Portraying Women), was shown in Berlin, Oaxaca, Cairo and Ghent.

No prior registration necessary. Meeting point: ticket counter in the foyer.