On July 22nd, the cartoonist Ipek Özsüslü gave a workshop about drawing techniques. She is working for Bayan Yanı, a famous Turkish Feminist Cartoon magazine. For the next issue of the magazine, she wants to publish something together with the Kite Runner’s‘s Illustrators. Ipek is well-known in Turkey for her drawing skills and her anti-authoritarianism. The thirty-seven-year-old is one of Turkey’s best-known cartoonists. Child abuse and forced marriage are addressed in Ipek’s cartoons. The two magazines she works for are LeMan and Bayan Yanı.
After the lesson by Ipek, we watched the short video Burka Blue by the Burka Band. In addition to being an ironic response to Western superstar and girl group images, the Video also cheerfully and self-ironically paints the counter-image of a world that is seen as primarily war-torn.
The Burka Band was formed during a music workshop in October 2002 at the state music school “Institute of Learning Music” in Kabul (Afghanistan). It was organized by the Goethe-Institut there together with the Afghan Ministry of Culture. The band “a certain frank” (Kurt Dahlke and Frank Fenstermacher) was invited, together with the drummer Saskia von Klitzing, with whom both also play in the band “Fehlfarben“. The first Afghan women’s pop band emerged: the “Burka Band“, three women, perform in typical national clothing, the full-body veiling burka.
