Katja Kobolt

Katja Kobolt is a feminist curator, producer and teacher from Ljubljana, based in Munich. Her collaboration with the City of Women was formative for her understanding of feminism and art. Parallel to her MA studies at the University of Ljubljana, she was producing politically engaged art projects upon which she was in the year 2000 invited to become a spokeswomen of the City of Women festival, where she collaborated with curators Sabina Potočki, Koen van Daele and Bettina Knaup. Gradually, she coordinated the festival team, co-initiated and coordinated the COWEB festival blog in 2005 and curated parts of (mainly theoretical) festival programme. After her PhD studies at the University Ludwig-Maximilian Munich (with a feminist thesis on post-Yugoslav women’s writing on war) and upon the invitation of Sabina Potočki, she, in 2006, together with Dunja Kukovec, became a co-curator and co-manager of the City of Women.

Katja is also active as a teacher (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany), editor and author (e.g., No One Belongs Here More Than You / The Living Archive: Curating Feminist Knowledge, eds. Red Min(e)d); Working with Feminism: Curating and Exhibitions in Eastern Europe, ed. Katrin Kivimaa; and Performative Gestures, Political Moves, co-edited together with Lana Zdravković) and producer (A Space Called Public, curated by Elmgreen & Dragset, aspacecalledpublic.de) and (co)curator of various other exhibitions and events (Cross Border Experience, www.crossborderexperience.org/; Donumenta 14 x 14, donumenta.de/).

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/).