{"id":21274,"date":"2019-06-12T09:44:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T07:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/feministeerium.ee\/?p=21274"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:15:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T13:15:58","slug":"haveit-collective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/haveit-collective\/","title":{"rendered":"Haveit Collective: \u201cWhen we get angry, we use it for our art\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">Made up of two pairs of sisters in their twenties, the Haveit collective uses art and performance to draw attention to issues like LGBTQ rights or violence against women, still considered taboos in Kosovo today.<!--more--><\/p>\n<aside class=\"important-information\"><strong>HAVEIT\u2019S MILESTONES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1988-1991:\u00a0The four members of Haveit collective members are born in Pristina and Mitrovica.<br \/>\n2011:\u00a0The Haveit collective is created in Pristina.<br \/>\nFebruary 14, 2014:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/haveit\/photos\/a.190377874455654\/265312753628832\/?type=3&amp;theater\">Valentine\u2019s Day performance\u00a0The Kiss<\/a> triggers a lot of social media attention and reactions. The group receives over 100 death threats.<br \/>\nMarch 8, 2018:\u00a0Three billboards in Pristina,[referring to the Oscar-winning film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri] created before the International Women\u2019s day walk on March 8th in Pristina, alluded to the murders of Diana Kastrati and Zejnepe Bytyqi, two women killed by their husbands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HISTORY OF WOMEN\u2019S RIGHTS IN KOSOVO<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1998:\u00a0Outbreak of the conflict in Kosovo between ethnic Serbs and Albanians.<br \/>\nFebruary 17, 2008:\u00a0Kosovo declares independence.<br \/>\nApril 7, 2011: Atifete Jahjaga, a former deputy director of the Kosovo police, became the first female president of Kosovo.<br \/>\nFebruary 2018:\u00a0Kosovo\u2019s government starts officially acknowledging victims of wartime rape, entitling them to compensations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>STATISTICS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Gender pay gap: The lack of wage data prevents the analysis of earnings differentials between men and women. (<a href=\"http:\/\/documents.worldbank.org\/curated\/en\/371251468030245833\/pdf\/759300WP0ENGLI0Box0379792B00PUBLIC0.pdf\">World Bank report<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Women remain underrepresented as elected officials in municipal assemblies (35%) and the parliament (32%).<\/aside>\n<p><strong>You all studied art at the Faculty of Art in Pristina. How did you end up choosing performance art as your preferred medium?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Arb\u00ebrore<\/strong>:\u00a0I studied film direction and a professor told me that directing was for boys, not girls\u2026 obvious sexism! After that comment, I didn\u2019t feel very motivated or inspired to study. I thought it was important to talk about the fact that this profession is deemed to be for boys, not girls, before I started making movies. With Haveit we started discussing these kinds of issues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vesa<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0Haveit allows us to express all our frustrations through art. We like street performances; we created our own space, our own gallery and our own world in which we can express ourselves. Even if it doesn\u2019t change anything, it changed us!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is sexism widespread in universities in Kosovo?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0I had the same problems in the theatre department, so I dropped out of university in my third year. A professor of mine had a problem with female directors. Once, he told me: \u201cIf you want to be a theatre director, you need to have balls. As you don\u2019t have them, you can\u2019t be one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>:\u00a0The same goes for actresses. Some professors would say: \u201cYou will probably get married and won\u2019t be doing this for a long time.\u201d It\u2019s very frustrating!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>It takes courage to stand up for yourself, to perform on the streets. Which role models did you have while growing up and what did you learn from them?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0My aunt was a puppet theatre director. She was the first in the family to study in Belgrade and she was very young when she left. She lives alone since she didn\u2019t want to get married and compromise her career. She is the most powerful woman I know and I look up to her.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vesa<\/strong>:\u00a0Our mother is the strongest woman I know. She has gone through a lot and she still manages to be the happiest woman I\u2019ve met.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>:\u00a0I consider all the women who live in this patriarchal society as role models. Also, my oldest sister helped me a lot. She was extremely supportive when I told her I wanted to become an actress.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arb\u00ebrore<\/strong>:\u00a0I find our mum very inspiring. When we were younger, she would never make us do chores. She would say: \u201cDo your homework, I don\u2019t want you to end up like me, as a housewife, and ask your husband for money to buy a pack of cigarettes. I want you to have your work, your money; I want you to be independent.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<dl id=\"attachment_21275\">\n<dt><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt7-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" \/><\/dt>\n<dd>Image: Jetmir Idrizi<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Was the relationship with your father more tense?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Arb\u00ebrore<\/strong>:\u00a0Actually, I\u2019ve had a very good relationship with him ever since I was a child. In Kosovo, it\u2019s a big deal to have four daughters. People would say: \u201cHopefully your mother will give you a brother.\u201d My mother would feel bad about it, she would blame herself. This is how the society works; they blame a woman for not having a boy. I really appreciate the fact that my father never talked about it in this way, he always said he was very proud to have us and he was very supportive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do your families react to your performances?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>: They support us, but they do it in silence. They like that we are travelling as a group and performing abroad. Nowadays, they take the collective more seriously, they respect what we do more because we have been doing this for years. In the beginning, they would tell us: \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be doing this, you should quit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>You are two pairs of sisters. Do you fight while working together?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All at the same time:\u00a0Of course! All the time!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0Most of the time, however, we fight between sisters.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>You received threats after some of your performances. Do you feel you are in danger because of your work?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Vesa<\/strong>:\u00a0After\u00a0<em>The Kiss<\/em>\u00a0performance [<em>they kissed in centre of Pristina for Valentine\u2019s day in 2014<\/em>] was posted online, we received over 100 death threats on social media. We were stressed; we felt scared and insecure. But we got over it quite quickly and realised that these people were only showing their frustrations online. You can feel scared in the heat of the moment, but in general we\u2019re not afraid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0Most of the people comment on social media. In the streets, they don\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LGBTQ rights were at the core of that performance. Has there been a change in the way the LGBTQ community is perceived in Kosovo?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Arb\u00ebrore<\/strong>:\u00a0When we did\u00a0<em>The Kiss<\/em>, the situation was much scarier. Now it\u2019s a bit better. The first pride parade in 2017 went well; there was a movie about a gay couple that was a huge hit in the theatres. I think there is hope, because there is a sense of acceptance within the younger generation. They\u2019re more open, more tolerant.<\/p>\n<p>Your first performance was about Diana Kastrati, a woman killed on May 18 2011 in broad daylight by her husband, after having reported him to the police.\u00a0Why did you decide to make this case your first work?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vesa<\/strong>:\u00a0Back in 2011, we would hang out a lot. We would get together and complain, complain, complain. After the Diana case happened, we thought it was about time to do something \u2013 not just complain \u2013 and we did that performance.<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_21287\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21287\" class=\"wp-image-21287 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5-330x220.jpg 330w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5-555x370.jpg 555w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt5.jpg 2400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-21287\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image: Jetmir Idrizi<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>What does the artistic decision-making process look like now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0The Diana Kastrati case was kind of an obvious choice because it was so brutal. It was a huge case and it was upsetting. Then there was this problem with water cuts in the city, so we did a performance about that. We didn\u2019t know what the collective was about in the beginning. We didn\u2019t want to label ourselves. Performance by performance, we defined ourselves together and we realised there were certain issues that affect us more than others. What disturbs us the most is sexism, because we experience it on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>What is it like to be a woman in Kosovo today?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>:\u00a0There are over a thousand cases of reported domestic violence a year, many murders, and this is really frustrating. All of these rape and sexual harassment cases, well, they\u2019re not taken seriously by the police.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vesa<\/strong>:\u00a0The police started to take it more seriously only recently, before if you would go see them\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>: \u2026They would almost say something like: \u201cBeat your wife inside, so that the neighbours don\u2019t complain.\u201d Now it\u2019s not like that, but it\u2019s still bad. We don\u2019t feel safe. When I go home in the evening, I always take a taxi. If I would get harassed, I would not go to the police. That would just make my life more complicated. The police would ask me: \u201cWhy were you alone this late? Were you drunk? What were you wearing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0If I see a group of men in the streets, I try to avoid them. I immediately know that they will yell something at me, something I don\u2019t want to hear.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Domestic violence is one of the most pressing issues in Kosovo today [<em>according to a survey from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-kosovo-women-violence\/kosovos-battered-women-trapped-in-vicious-cycle-in-black-hole-of-europe-idUSKBN1D80KB\">Kosova Women Network<\/a>, 63.5 per cent of women said they experienced sexual harassment, compared to 24.3 per cent of men. Over 40 per cent of female respondents claimed they had been victims of domestic violence<\/em>.] It inspired another performance of yours called\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/newsmavens.com\/news\/aha-moments\/1331\/three-billboards-in-pristina-kosovo\">Three billboard in Pristina<\/a><\/em>. The billboards read: \u201cHow many more missed calls?\u201d, \u201cDiana Kastrati\u201d and \u201cZejnepe Bytyqi\u201d [<em>two women killed by their husbands<\/em>]. How did people react?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>:\u00a0We put the billboards in front of the police station in order to highlight that cases like these are never being solved or taken seriously. There were some politicians that shared the posts about the performance\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vesa<\/strong>:\u00a0We only got good feedback from people. I don\u2019t know what the police thought, but who cares. Diana Kastrati\u2019s\u00a0mother told us she was very thankful that people didn\u2019t forget her daughter\u2019s name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How does the inaction on the part of the authorities make you feel?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>:\u00a0It makes us want to continue because maybe we\u2019ll get somebody\u2019s attention, maybe someday these things will be taken seriously.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vesa<\/strong>:\u00a0When we get angry, we use it for our art.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_21281\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21281\" class=\"wp-image-21281 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2-330x220.jpg 330w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2-555x370.jpg 555w, https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/HaveIt2.jpg 2400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-21281\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image: Jetmir Idrizi<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Do you think of yourselves as feminists? And if so, what do you think that word means in Kosovo today?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0It means we need to have equal rights and to be treated as humans. To be a feminist in my country is to fight for that. We don\u2019t do #MeToo or any of these social media things, because we have these deep \u2013 or basic, rather \u2013 problems.\u00a0Our feminism might look different than European feminism because there, they have \u2018first world problems\u2019. Our problems are somewhat more violent. We see domestic violence, murders, killers walking freely and raising their children, and nobody arresting them.\u00a0Maybe what we have here is more of an old, primitive feminism [<em>laughs<\/em>].<\/p>\n<p><strong>You mentioned the #MeToo movement. Did it have any impact on feminism in Kosovo?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>:\u00a0We have these very basic problems, we\u2019re not there yet. But the #MeToo movement is relevant for me. I\u2019m an actress and I understand these issues. It\u2019s good it went viral because it empowers women everywhere in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Kosovo also has its specific problems as a country, which experienced a conflict only 20 years ago\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hana<\/strong>:\u00a0Most of the people are still very traumatised because of the war. We have many war rape victims and for a long time, nobody cared about them. Whatever you do with regards to this topic, it\u2019s feminism, because you raise your voice for the women who got raped in a society that ignored them in order to glorify the army. Thousands of women got raped and the army wasn\u2019t there to protect them! It was only recently that rape victims were officially recognised as war victims in the eyes of the state.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alkete<\/strong>:\u00a0Many women who got raped never told their stories because they feel ashamed; they are afraid to talk about it openly.\u00a0[<em>It is estimated that 20 000 people experiences sexual violence during the war but many victims are afraid to come forward. The NGOs dealing with the issue have identified around 1000 who have told their stories, reports the Kosovo-based magazine\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/kosovotwopointzero.com\/\">Kosovo 2.0<\/a>.<\/em>]<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Because of the pending visa liberalisation process, Kosovars cannot travel freely. Does this impact the way you think about Europe?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>All in one voice:\u00a0We don\u2019t really think about Europe\u2026<br \/>\nAlkete:\u00a0We once refused a residency in Vienna [because of the whole visa process], and it also meant that we weren\u2019t desperate to go to Europe. We want to be treated the same way other artists are. We don\u2019t feel inferior, but to get treated like this when applying for visas is depressing, and people here are treated like this all the time. At that point, we just wanted to say: \u201cHaveit, from Kosovo with love. F*** off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20257\" src=\"https:\/\/feministeerium.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/piklik-logo-1024x161.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 585px) 100vw, 585px\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/piklik-logo-1024x161.jpg 1024w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/piklik-logo-300x47.jpg 300w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/piklik-logo-768x121.jpg 768w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/piklik-logo.jpg 1191w\" alt=\"\" width=\"585\" height=\"92\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>The interview was published in the framework of\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/sistersofeurope.com\/#about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Sisters of Europe<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><em>Sisters of Europe is an empowerment project to inspire and better connect women across Europe, through 17 inspiring stories, a series of events and a list of concrete proposals. Read the other interviews\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/feministeerium.ee\/en\/tag\/sistersofeurope\/\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Made up of two pairs of sisters in their twenties, the Haveit collective uses art and performance to draw attention to issues like LGBTQ rights or violence against women, still considered taboos in Kosovo today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393],"tags":[646,546,822,758,823],"class_list":["post-21274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-inequality","tag-kosovo","tag-sistersofeurope","tag-violence"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21274"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44813,"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21274\/revisions\/44813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.feministeerium.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}