One of Urban herstories storytellers in front of location she tells a story about. Photo by Asmir Mahalbašić, Dario Kustura, Jasmina Horić Where the Streets Have No Female Names Tandem alumni Lidija Pisker brings us the international women's art project "Urban Herstories – Female Face of Zenica" which has documented the social, political and urban changes in Zenica from the 1960s onwards through a female perspective. Read on. Central Bosnian city of Zenica may easily be described as the city “where the streets have no female names.” Only two city streets are named after women, out of a total of 150 of them. No primary or secondary school in Zenica, no square and no bridge are named after a woman, the 2018 research of students of Zenica’s Faculty of Philosophy showed. But an international female art project I took part in has shed some light on female urban history of my home town. “Urban Herstories – Female Face of Zenica” is a collaborative art initiative that documented the social, political and urban changes in Zenica from the 1960s onwards through a female perspective. The project collected personal stories of elderly women from Zenica related to specific mapped locations in the city, upon which the so-called “Female city map” has been created. It also examined the role of women in Zenica’s history, visibility of notable women in Zenica’s public places and gender perspective of aging. One of Urban herstories storytellers in front of location she tells a story about. Photo by Asmir Mahalbašić, Dario Kustura, Jasmina Horić. The female map of the city and its stories became part of a female city audio guide and of an interesting photographic project authored by Ukrainian artist Elena Subach. The project is a joint initiative of Naš Most Association from Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Insha Osvita from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, Kino Usmev from Košice, Slovakia and Strefa Kultury Wroclaw from Wroclaw, Poland. Zenica-based youth association Naša Djeca was our partner on the project. The volunteers of Naš most have recorded and produced the audio guide and audio and video trailers for the project. They have also digitised our storytellers’ archive photos which Elena Subach used to produce photo collages consisting of combination of the archive footages of our storytellers and of the city, which took one of the leading roles in our project. One of Urban herstories storytellers records her story for the audio guide. One of Urban herstories storytellers in front of location she tells a story about. The pandemic of COVID-19 played a huge role in the project as well. It forced us to cancel the visits of Ukrainian and Slovakian artists to Zenica and it made reaching out to our targeted senior population much harder. But after all the struggles, we did it. It helped us understand how important it is to “give” faces and voices to the elderly, especially to the elderly women, who are much too often invisible and voiceless in all of our countries. The social isolation that has become such a huge trauma for the mankind during the pandemic is what many of them live with for years and years of their lives. One of the audio walks held this October in Zenica. Photo by Dženan Pjanić Our female audio guide was launched on October 1st, the International Day of Older Persons in Zenica and virtually, through a live stream on Facebook. Unfortunately, due to newly imposed COVID-19 restrictions, we have decided to postpone the launch of Elena’s exhibition until the spring next year in Zenica. In the meantime, you can virtually walk through my home town and listen to the voices of our Urban Herstories storytellers if you follow this link.