Who makes the maps? Who is the dominant figure in public space and who decides how the city is depicted? The public space has been related to men, while women are still supposed to fit more in the domestic space. In the same time, the city seems to be a place of rationality and power, and the map a “masculine” product with no possibility of emotional expression. Specifically, the area of the project’s implementation - the region between America Square and Victoria Square- is a multicultural, underprivileged, central, urban environment, where women face many challenges in the public space. From the use of public transportation to walking home at night, hostility and fear prevent women from embracing their neighborhood.

FemMap is a project that comes to overthrow this situation by illuminating the feminine view of the city. Using artistic means and together with an engaged women’s group, we will create a feminine map of the neighborhood. An emotional, always-changing, artistic, vivid, alternative map! The project’s main goals are to empower the women involved, promote their creativity, make them more visible in the public space and create bonds of solidarity and integration between them. What is more, FemMap’s partners create and reinforce a strong network of creative/local groups that can continue work together towards radical, innovative and socially impactful results.

“Grüße aus Kattenturm” is a project that took place in Kattenturm- a multicultural and underprivileged area of Bremen. The project managed to bring women from different cultures and ages on the same table and help them express themselves on neighborhood’s issues. Women of various ages from Germany, Austria, Greece, Afghanistan, Georgia and Mexico joined us in Quartier’s Atelier in Kattenturm and discussed creatively on the experience of being a woman in the public space and specifically in their neighborhood. The women with the guidance of the artist Claudia A. Cruz, found ways to express themselves through photographic statements. We implemented photo shooting sessions in the public space of Kattenturm. Then, together with the participants we collected the products of these statements and created postcards with the title “Grüße aus Kattenturm”, which we presented and offered to the neighborhood aiming to illuminate its everyday life from a feminine point of view.