Katja Kobolt

Katja Kobolt is a scholar of cultural and memory studies. Since her studies in comparative literature and literary history as well as journalism at the University of Ljubljana (1996–02), her crossdisciplinary PhD in literary studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2002–10) and her many years of work as a curator and art educator, her research interests have focused on women's authorship and feminist interventions in processes of memorialization, historicization and institutionalization.

As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Institute of Culture and Memory Studies, ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana, she is currently researching artistic work for children in socialist Yugoslav children's literature.

Dr. Kobolt has published on the gendered memory of the post-Yugoslav wars in literature (Frauen schreiben Geschichte(n), 2009) and on feminist curating and canonization processes, and on intersectional aspects of artistic work. Her recent publications include “Negotiating the impact of literature for children in early socialist Yugoslavia” (Social impact in arts and culture: the diverse lives of a concept, Kosmos I., Pogačar M., ed. 2022), “Artistic work for children between productive and social reproductive work”(Libri & Liberi 12(2), 2023) and Feminizem, umetnost, literatura (Časopis za kritiko znanosti 289, 2023), where she was a guest editor. 

Katja Kobolt and Dunja Kukovec curated the 13th, 14th and pre-prepared the programme of the 15th City of Women Festivals. During that time and together with Sabina Potočki, the City of Women joined the A Space For Live Art programme (aspaceforliveart.org/) and also intensified the programme outside the festival frame in Slovenia as well as abroad (e.g., the exhibitions: Humour Works, Ljubljana, Bratislava, Sarajevo, Berlin; and Natural Relations, Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana). Dunja and Katja aspired City of Women to be an open platform for curatorial collaborations and activist actions. Since 2011, they have been collaborating together again within the feminist curatorial group Red Min(e)d, working on a continuous Living Archive, an interactive platform and a multi-layered research site that explores feminist principles, methods and paradigms of feminist exhibition-making and archives within contemporary art (bringintakeout.wordpress.com/).