Harem Girls, Sajsi MC, and Vimoksha to Perform at the LGBTIQ Arts and Activism Festival — All Events Are Free of Charge

This year’s Kvirhana Festival is held under the slogan “We’re Not New Here”, boldly affirming the existence, resistance, and contribution of LGBTIQ people throughout history.

With this theme, we aim to shed light on the continuity of life and struggle within the LGBTIQ community and to honor those who came before us, yet remained invisible, silenced, or erased from dominant narratives due to repression, violence, and legal or societal bans. LGBTIQ people are not a product of modern times nor “imported from the West.” We have always been, and always will be, part of society.

The festival program kicks off on Thursday, June 12 at 5 PM at the Goethe-Institut with Queer Talks, covering various topics important to feminism and LGBTIQ activism and art. In collaboration with the Sarajevo War Theatre and the BiH Pride March, a performance of “The World and All That It Holds” will take place at 8 PM, a multilingual, polyphonic, thrilling epic about love and exile. Based on the novel “The World and All That It Holds” by Aleksandar Hemon, the play tells one of the most beautiful love stories in contemporary literature, between two Sarajevo conscripts, Rafael Pinto and Osman Karišik, who meet on the front lines during World War I and fall in love.

The second day of the festival begins at 1 PM at the Goethe-Institut with a panel titled “The Cultural Significance of Feminist and Queer Festivals”, featuring organizers from regional festivals. This will be followed by the opening of photographer Simon Chang’s exhibition “Drag Queens”, in collaboration with the Sarajevo Photography Festival. The Goethe-Institut program wraps up with the screening of SLO_1984 ’87, directed by Boris Petkovič, which captures 35 years of the LGBT movement in Slovenia through the lens of activism and culture.

The official opening ceremony will take place on Friday, June 13 at the Historical Museum with the launch of the book “The History of Queer Life in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, the first publication to comprehensively document the presence, lives, and resistance of queer people in BiH from the Ottoman period to the end of the 20th century. This book, the result of four years of work, reveals the hidden pages of BiH history by recording forgotten traces of queer experiences through court records, folk tales, newspaper articles, and personal memories.
The discussion will feature authors Damir Imamović, Emina Bošnjak, Matej Vrebac, Lejla Kalamujić, and Nikolina Todorović.

The music program will take place at the Dom mladih Skenderija Amphitheater from 10 PM, featuring Vimoksha, a multitalented Bosnian musician whose career exploded in 2023 with the viral hit “Nazovi nekog osim dilera”, and Harem Girls – a drag collective that gained popularity after appearing in Serbia’s Eurovision Song Contest selection. Also performing are DJ LUBNYA and DJ JovJovan.

The final day of the festival begins again at the Goethe-Institut from 12 to 2 PM with workshops by artist Milena Ivić and Kerim Hodžić on socially engaged art, street art, and activism.

After the BiH Pride March, the afterparty will take place in the dancing hall of the Dom mladih Skenderija starting at 10 PM. The party opens with DJ A.N.D.R., producer and member of the electro-pop band Retrospektiva, followed by a performance by Sajsi MC, one of the most prominent female rappers in the region. The unmissable DRAGHANA drag show will feature seven Bosnian drag artists. Closing out the night will be #ŽeneBiH with a DJ/VJ set.

All festival updates can be found on Kvirhana Festival’s Instagram and Facebook pages.