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Slice of Life

All-inclusive feminist festival brings people together

Delaney Kuric | Head Illustrator

The LadyFest was originally held at the Westcott Community Center but now is at Spark Contemporary Art Space.

By Deniz SahinturkStaff Writer

LadyFest, the annual all-inclusive feminist festival, will be taking place Saturday at Spark Contemporary Art Space.

The festival, which is in its third year celebrating women, people of color and people in the LGBT community, is set up by organizers Meghan Tamilio and Cara Luddy.

“I decided to start LadyFest because I felt like Syracuse needed a turbo blast of feminism,” Tamilio said.

She said empowering women is the central message of the festival, since there previously wasn’t a real niche for a feminist festival in Syracuse and the music and art scene was male-dominated.

“We aim to celebrate women in the arts and give women a place to express themselves and showcase their talent,” Tamilio said.



She added that she hopes the festival will continue for many years to come.

The first two years LadyFest was held at the Westcott Community Center, which Tamilio picked because of the central location. This year, though, it is happening at Spark Contemporary Art Space, which she said will be better because the space is larger and they will have “more freedom to do what we want.”

The headliner of the festival is Sammus, a rapper from Ithaca. Tamilio describes her as talented and a self-proclaimed feminist. Luddy, one of the co-organizers, is responsible for getting her to perform as well as Green Dreams, which is another popular feminist act from Rochester. A number of other artists will also be performing.

The first year I posted a lot of flyers and utilized social media to get the word out, and I got a lot of really great responses. I think the theme of the event struck a chord with a lot of people, hence the reason they wanted to get involved.
Meghan Tamilio

Tamilio said the reactions to LadyFest have been all positive, adding that people have expressed gratitude, excitement and inspiration.

“The funniest reaction has probably been, ‘Can guys go?’ The answer to that is yes, of course guys can go and we encourage it,” she said.

Elizabeth Sedore, a junior women’s and gender studies major at Syracuse University, said it is super important this kind of event is happening in the city of Syracuse.

“It’s really great to celebrate all marginalized identities, and that’s the objective of the festival, which is so cool,” Sedore said. “There are so few places at SU that are designed for having these kinds of events so it’s just really awesome to have a place where I can celebrate and meet other people like me.”





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