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Art and Healing – A Roma Contribution for Europe

 

24.07 26.09.2021

 

The exhibition Art and Healing- A Roma Contribution for Europe opened in Schafhof – European Center for Art Upper Bavaria on July 24th. The exhibition features works by Valérie Leray (F), Selma Selman (BH), Dan Turner (GB), Alfred Ullrich (D), and the nomadic RomaMoMA library, consisting of approximately 100 English-language books focusing on Roma Art History and Roma Cultural History, which is intended as a space to preserve, collect and showcase contemporary Roma literary and artistic heritage.

From the concept note by Timea Junghaus: Roma individuals throughout Europe make a tremendous effort to keep the record of a Roma cultural history archived, and events remembered. Through Roma-led activities and assemblies, the Roma continue to build a genealogy of Roma arts and culture. The countercultural machinery remains active through Roma self-representations, self-determinations, and through Roma politics calling out political, economic, and racial oppression. Roma artists imagine a Europe where unveiling truths, beginning with self-remedy, and healing together becomes possible. The artists share their resources to configure visions for a peaceful and whole Europe. They mitigate the notions of time, space, nature, and community, taking inspiration from their experiences born out of Roma heritage and knowledge, all so utterly connected to the Roma history of survival and resilience, the successful strategies of transgenerational knowledge transfer, and the wise mechanisms of inspiring belonging and building a community, while inviting universal participation.