Popular Education Lab in Serbia: Power of Art gender justice, social transformation, and intergenerational work. Nano! Zašto si tužna? Whose stories are we telling? Who tells our stories? What stories have we forgotten to tell? These are the questions we carried with us through our Popular Education Lab week in Serbia. Within the Erasmus+ funded project “Innovative Active Citizenship Education for All” implemented in Germany, France and Serbia, We gathered in Magnet House, in Veliki Gaj, to talk about Radical Popular Education and the power of art within social transformation, gender justice, and intergenerational work. This time around, the focus was on emancipation of women* in rural areas. To understand, we had to walk. We spent an entire day tracing the dirt roads of the village, stepping into the worlds of local women who graciously opened their doors to groups of strangers who didn’t even speak their languages. They offered us Turkish coffee, fresh cornbread, and their beautiful stories. Their stories stayed with us throughout the week, returning in our performances, our conversations, and the questions we asked of our own histories. This is a story about stories. Over five intense days, we peeled back the layers of life in Veliki Gaj, only to find our own reflections underneath. In looking closely at our family histories, a bittersweet truth emerged: our grief and resilience are painfully similar. Whether a family lived in a rural Serbian village, a small town in Iran, or a Kurdish community in Turkey, the echoes of war and displacement sound the same. Before the workshop began, we were asked to email a few photographs of what reminded us of the Second World War. As an immigrant from Iran, having spent most of my life there and now living in Germany, I found myself thinking long and hard about what I could possibly contribute. Compared to participants from Serbia, Germany, and France; countries whose histories are so visibly intertwined with the war; it initially felt as though I had little to add. But the more I reflected, the more I realized that Iran, too, carries the legacy of the Second World War, even if its story is less often told. I knew exactly whose photograph I wanted to send: Iran’s monarch at the time, Reza Shah. His legacy is often reduced to the claim that he sympathized with Nazi Germany. Yet looking more closely at his decisions and at times, his inability to make them; reveals a far more complicated story, one shaped by competing imperial powers, occupation, and the limits of political agency. That photograph became a reminder that the history of the Second World War, not unlike any other war, extends far beyond the countries most commonly associated with it, and that every family, every nation, carries its own version of its consequences. Art, a language unbound Using art as our language, we gave physical form to the intangible. To honor our ancestors, each group reenacted the lives of the most powerful, impactful women* in their lineages. What followed were three powerful performances capturing the raw realities of land ownership, loss, mourning, deep love, and the defiant, silly light of joy kept alive during times of hardship. And one entire day, we used our hands to sculpt headpieces, crafting a tangible form for the thoughts we had carried all week. We also anchored our days in the physical artifacts of memory: The Archives: Participants brought forward old family photographs, moving through faded pictures, long forgotten stories, and memorabilia from the Second World War. The Museums: In collaborative groups, we pitched concepts for an entirely new kind of museum, imagining what it would look like, how it would feel, and whose it is for. The Spomenar: At the end of each day, every group poured their reflections into a Spomenar, a traditional Balkan memory book and autograph album, recording our reflections to revisit together the following morning, before new stories began. Reweaving the Fabric Through seven different languages, countless shared meals, and endless walks across the village, we grew closer. We built bonds around the bonfire at night and held space for tears in our morning circles, continually grounding our creative practice in the framework of radical popular education. As the week closed, we arrived at our final, urgent question: How can popular education be woven into active, lasting movements for women*´s emancipation? Our final day was a gathering of the threads, bringing together everything we had performed, questioned, and felt, anchoring it into a collective vision for social transformation. We Need To Talk Leaving Veliki Gaj, I kept asking myself what these practices could look like in Berlin. Working in communities shaped by migration, displacement, and multiple cultural identities, I often encounter stories that remain fragmented, private, or overshadowed by dominant historical narratives. Too often, people’s lived experiences are treated as personal memories rather than as knowledge that can shape how we understand society and imagine change. This week reinforced that radical popular education can begin with something as simple, and as powerful, as an invitation to remember together. By creating space for storytelling, collective reflection, and artistic expression, we don’t simply preserve memories; we begin to uncover the political structures that connect them. I was reminded that archives are not only found in museums, but in family photo albums, kitchen tables, and conversations between generations. These are the places where histories that are often excluded from official narratives continue to live. As I return to Berlin, I hope to carry these methods into my own organizing: collective storytelling, creative documentation, intergenerational dialogue, and participatory art as ways of building trust and solidarity. Rather than treating memory as nostalgia, I want to explore it as a political tool; one that helps communities recognize shared experiences across differences and transform them into collective action. If we are serious about emancipation of women* and active citizenship, then preserving overlooked histories and creating spaces where people can tell them, reinterpret them, and learn from one another must be part of the work.