WOW – Women of the World: The World’s Largest Festival for Women, Femininities and Non-Binary People Returns to the SNFCC for the 4th Year

From March 27 to 30, 2026, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), in collaboration with the WOW Foundation, presents for the fourth consecutive year WOW – Women of the World Athens, the world’s largest festival dedicated to women, femininities, and non-binary people. For the first time this year, WOW Athens opens its doors to everyone, offering free admission to the vast majority of its events. This decision reflects the festival’s philosophy as an open, participatory, and inclusive institution that seeks to make the dialogue on gender equality accessible to the widest possible audience.

Elli Andriopoulou, CEO of the SNFCC, states: “Gender equality is not an abstract concept – it touches every aspect of our daily lives, our relationships, our opportunities, and our sense of belonging. WOW Athens returns this year to remind us that progress is achieved when we all have the courage to keep questioning what we often accept as normal.”

Diverse and intersectional, this year’s WOW Athens program has been designed both to inspire reflection and to entertain, while celebrating the important steps being taken in Greece and around the world on the challenging journey toward gender equality.

Among this year’s international speakers are once again iconic figures and bold voices, including American activist and author Tarana J. Burke, who founded the Me Too movement in New York; writer Rumena Bužarovska, whose book My Husband inspired the homonymous performance to be presented at the SNFCC Lighthouse; and Professor of Gender and Development Studies and author specializing in gender, poverty, and social exclusion, Naila Kabeer.

Music remains, once again, an integral part of WOW Athens. This year’s program highlights French singer-songwriter Imany in a concert that combines music with contemporary social dialogue, inspired by her new album Women Deserve Rage.

Meanwhile, the film program features three documentaries mapping the trajectory of feminist movements across three different geographical and political contexts: Greece, the United States, and the Arab world.

From the SNFCC Reception area to the perimeter of Stavros Niarchos Park and the National Garden, the WOW Athens exhibitions invite the public into a dialogue that extends beyond the boundaries of the conventional exhibition space. The interactive sculptural installation “Temple of Transmission,” a collaboration between the organization “Each One Story” and visual artist Marina Velissioti, narrates stories of women that are rarely heard. The photography exhibition “Together, Visible,” in collaboration with MOMus – Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, highlights multiple facets of women’s lived experiences, while “The Hope Brigade” presents portraits of women who serve as sources of inspiration and hope.

The audience will also have the opportunity to experience two performances: Georgia Lale’s “Tears for You and for Me,” which uses domestic labor as a metaphor for the sacrifices often expected from women in the name of love and family; and Eva Lambara’s poetic live performance combining spoken word and video, where breath becomes rhythm and silence is given space.

Numerous discussion panels addressing critical social issues, workshops, WOW Speed Mentoring sessions, DJ sets, concerts, and the WOW Marketplace – a vibrant space for women’s entrepreneurship and activism – complete this year’s festival program.

The program, as currently shaped, includes:

Keynote Speakers

Rumena Bužarovska
Friday, March 27, 19:30
Lighthouse

Rumena Bužarovska is a writer, translator, and professor of American literature at the University of Skopje. She is considered one of the most important contemporary literary voices in Southeast Europe, with works translated into more than fifteen languages and internationally acclaimed. Her writing, sharp and deeply human-centered, focuses on interpersonal relationships and the delicate balances of everyday life, shedding light on critical social and cultural issues.

Drawing on landmark works such as her short story collections My Husband (the performance My Husband, presented as part of the festival and directed by Maria Magkanari, is based on this book) and I’m Not Going Anywhere, her talk is expected to illuminate the emotional and social constraints women experience in their daily lives.

Tarana J. Burke
Sunday, March 29, 13:00
Alternative Stage

Tarana J. Burke is an internationally recognized activist, author, and advocate for social justice, with more than 35 years of work in combating sexual violence and racial inequality. Her work centers on supporting survivors from marginalized communities, with particular emphasis on Black women and girls, promoting access to resources, healing, and collective empowerment. She founded the Me Too movement in 2006 as an act of solidarity, which evolved into a global call for accountability, care, and systemic change. In 2018, she established the nonprofit organization Me Too International, which continues to support survivors worldwide.

Her talk will focus on critical issues such as femicide, the cultural context shaping gender-based violence, psychosocial support and legal protection for victims, as well as emerging therapeutic approaches to trauma recovery. Drawing from her extensive experience and her books You Are Your Best Thing and Unbound (both New York Times bestsellers), Burke opens a meaningful dialogue around care, resilience, and collective action.

Ekaterina Juskowski
“The City as a State of Mind: Women, Power and the Architecture of the Urban Landscape”
Sunday, March 29, 17:00
Lighthouse

Author, curator, and independent researcher based between Miami and Athens, Ekaterina Juskowski is known for transforming personal research into cultural critique. She is the author of The Warp of Time (2024), founder of the Miami Girls Foundation – a nonprofit supporting feminist initiatives – and of the Art Residency at the Old Carpet Factory on Hydra. Through her interdisciplinary practice, she proposes new ways of reading the city and our place within it, through a critical and emancipatory lens.

At WOW Athens, Juskowski invites the audience to engage in a multilayered reading of the city as a psychological, political, and narrative landscape. Through the stories cities tell about women, she explores how these narratives crystallize into urban and cultural stereotypes that reproduce power relations, what they exclude or conceal, and how urban space itself can be transformed once we begin to rewrite the narratives that have shaped us.

Drawing from research on gender, migration, and urban representation, Juskowski analyzes how these recurring patterns become internalized as a “state of mind,” influencing visibility, belonging, and the distribution of power within the realm of social imagination.

In Conversation with Naila Kabeer
Moderator: Antigone Lyberaki, Professor of Economics, Department of Economic and Regional Development, Panteion University
Monday, March 30, 19:30
Lighthouse

Naila Kabeer is Emeritus Professor at the Department of International Development and the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics. A feminist economist and member of the International Association for Feminist Economics, she brings extensive research, teaching, and advisory experience on issues of gender, poverty, and social inequality.

The central theme running through her work is the analysis of the different forms of individual and collective agency and decision-making exercised by women across diverse socio-economic and cultural contexts, with particular emphasis on women from poor and marginalized households.

Her most recent book, Renegotiating Patriarchy: Gender, Agency and the Bangladesh Paradox (LSE Press, 2024), brings together years of research in this field, examining how women have managed to bring about social change within a framework widely described as one of the most “non-negotiable” patriarchal systems in the world.

Concerts

WOW Sounds: Imany
Monday, March 30, 21:00
Stavros Niarchos Hall

French singer-songwriter Imany returns to Athens for a concert that brings together music and contemporary social dialogue. Drawing from her new album Women Deserve Rage, she speaks openly about women’s lived experiences and the right to authentic self-expression.

Her debut album The Shape of a Broken Heart went platinum in several European countries, with the single “You Will Never Know” introducing her to international audiences and achieving great success in Greece as well. Since then, her artistic journey has been marked by major distinctions and bold creative steps, including the project Voodoo Cello, where her voice was accompanied by eight cellos in a production presented in more than 100 concerts worldwide, including in Athens.

Alongside her musical career, Imany has developed strong social and activist engagement, speaking publicly about issues related to women’s health, rights, and visibility, connecting artistic expression with public stance. At the Stavros Niarchos Hall, Imany appears with her six-member band, inviting the audience into a live musical experience that transcends simple listening and becomes a collective encounter.

WOW Sounds: Tania Giannouli
Friday, March 27, 21:00
Book Tower

Tania Giannouli is an internationally acclaimed pianist, composer, improviser, and bandleader, classically trained in solo piano performance and contemporary composition. Drawing inspiration from diverse musical traditions, her work transcends stylistic boundaries, shaping a boundless sonic language that places her among the significant European voices of the contemporary jazz scene.

Performance

My Husband by Rumena Bužarovska
Directed by: Maria Magkanari
Performed by: Maria Skoula, Amalia KavalI, Maria Magkanari
Friday, March 27, 18:30
Lighthouse

The stage adaptation of Rumena Bužarovska’s short stories My Husband marks the opening of the festival, creating a space for collective reflection on gender, relationships, and contemporary female identity.

In Bužarovska’s stories, a sharp yet humorous universe of women’s narratives unfolds. Although the title suggests a focus on men, the stories center primarily on women: wives, lovers, mothers, daughters, friends. They depict the human condition through the lens of patriarchy, revealing with both humor and brutality the dynamics within couples and families in a contemporary patriarchal Balkan society—one that feels strikingly familiar. They expose both the illusion of female emancipation and the dead ends faced by men: both genders suffocate within the trap of traditional roles.

Screenings

Feminism Beyond Borders: Three Movements, Three Stories

As part of WOW Athens 2026, three documentaries trace the trajectory of feminist movements across three different geographical and political contexts: Greece, the United States, and the Arab world.

From feminist interventions in post-dictatorship Greece to the radical movements of the 1960s and ’70s in the United States and pioneering claims for rights in the Arab world, the three films highlight how women and gendered subjects organized, challenged institutions, and reshaped the public sphere.

Through archival material and personal testimonies, the screening program approaches feminism as a living, collective process that continues to shape how we understand equality, voice, and democracy today.

The films to be screened are:

In the Roar of the World: The Feminist Movement in Greece, 19th–21st Century
Screenplay–Direction: Maria Louka, Natasa Kefallinou, Niovi Anazikou
A production of Eteron – Institute for Research and Social Change in collaboration with the Diotima Centre
Friday, March 27, 21:00
Lighthouse

The documentary traces the journey of feminist struggles in Greece, from the first feminist awakening at the end of the 19th century to the multifaceted feminisms of today.

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry
Directed by: Mary Dore
Saturday, March 28, 21:00
Lighthouse

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a compelling, provocative, and often hilarious film about the birth of the women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s in the United States and its evolution to the present day, as told by the women who lived it.

Feminists Insha’Allah! The Story of Arab Feminism
Directed by: Feriel Ben Mahmoud
Sunday, March 29, 21:00
Lighthouse

This documentary tells the largely unknown story of a century of Arab feminism. Filmed in Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia, and featuring rare archival material alongside exclusive interviews with activists, it approaches Arab feminism from a historical perspective.

The Hope Brigade

Sunday, March 8 – Monday, March 30
Perimeter of the National Garden

The Hope Brigade is WOW’s photography series honoring women and non-binary people who are leading change across ten urgent global issues – from climate justice and the economy to education and health.

The first series was created in 2021 in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture and now includes portraits of 150 individuals from around the world. Emerging photographers, from Beijing to Brisbane, tell the story of a person working on the front lines of activism – often without the recognition they deserve, yet always with extraordinary impact.

In Athens, for the third consecutive year as part of WOW Athens, the SNFCC in collaboration with the National Garden presents twenty photographs of women who serve as sources of inspiration and hope for change, ten of which are portraits of remarkable Greek women. Highlighting WOW’s global character, the exhibition runs simultaneously with The Hope Brigade North East in England, hosted across various locations in North East England and showcasing outstanding women and non-binary people from the region.

Talks & Panel Discussions

Throughout the festival, pressing issues will be addressed in a series of panels featuring distinguished speakers from Greece and abroad. Indicative topics include:

• Conservative feminism
• Gender Studies in the age of precarity
• Toxic masculinity and the rise of the “manosphere”
• The “grey areas” of harassment
• The right to self-defense for women survivors of gender-based violence
• Pornography and digital violence
• Gender inequalities in Artificial Intelligence
• Women’s assertion and negotiation in the workplace
• Inclusive communication in professional environments
• Stories of women’s failure – with positive endings (in collaboration with Storymentor)
• Friendship and solidarity among women beyond patriarchal stereotypes
• Perfection as a noose for teenage girls
• Periods and menopause, without myths
• The reality of intersex femininity
• Contemporary motherhood and the lack of care networks
• Working fathers and open parenthood as workplace culture
• The gender dimension of cinema (in collaboration with WIFT GR)
• Gender stereotypes in fairy tales
• Stories of women from the Greek regions (in collaboration with WHEN)
• Co-creating a shared future with migrant and refugee women
• Romni women: women of Roma heritage in contemporary Greece
• Deconstructing the label “women’s” in football
• Women in jazz (in collaboration with the British Council and Women in Jazz, with the support of the British Embassy in Athens)

WOW Speed Mentoring Sessions
Saturday, March 28, 15:30
Sunday, March 29, 16:00
Foyer, Greek National Opera

Women and non-binary individuals from diverse social backgrounds and age groups, at different stages of their careers, come together to inspire and support one another. Mentors from a wide range of professional fields share their experience and expertise, helping other women and non-binary participants navigate the challenges they face.

WOW Marketplace
Friday, March 27 & Monday, March 30, 15:00–21:00
Saturday, March 28 & Sunday, March 29, 10:00–22:00
Agora

The “heart” of the festival, located in the Agora at the Κέντρο Πολιτισμού Ίδρυμα Σταύρος Νιάρχος (SNFCC). An open, vibrant marketplace featuring businesses, activist initiatives, and non-profit organizations founded and run by women or non-binary individuals, selling products and/or providing information on important social issues.

Throughout the festival, the WOW Marketplace will also host DJ sets, pop-up concerts, a big ’00s roller-skate party, and many surprise events.

Workshops

As part of the festival, audiences are invited to participate in a multi-themed program of experiential workshops focusing on empowerment, equality, and collective expression. From yoga sessions and workshops addressing unhealthy relationships and the gender dimension of music, to discussions on menstruation as a matter of health and justice, sports activities, and workshops for children, the program creates an open field for dialogue and creativity.

With free admission and on a first-come, first-served basis, the workshops are designed for different age groups, fostering safe and inclusive spaces for gathering. The full program is available at snfcc.org.

Schools at WOW Athens: Let’s Talk About Consent
Friday, March 27, 09:30
Lighthouse

Monday, March 30, 09:30
Stavros Niarchos Hall

The SNFCC collaborated with primary and secondary school educators from across Greece to inspire students to create works-guided by art and creativity-centered on the concept of consent. With the support of their teachers, students were invited to envision a world that rejects gender-based violence and stereotypes, where inclusion and the defense of reproductive and sexual rights become a reality for all.

A total of 34 schools and 709 students are participating in the initiative, which aims to foster critical thinking around consent and respect for others’ boundaries. Primary school projects will be presented on March 27 at the Lighthouse, while secondary school projects will be presented on March 30 at the Stavros Niarchos Hall. Student groups from outside Athens will present their projects either in person or digitally.