Arts and Culture

MAY 16 | ROMANI RESISTANCE DAY

On 16 May 2022, Romani communities across Europe will come together to mark the 78th anniversary of the Romani Uprising in Auschwitz. On that day in 1944, Roma prisoners of the so-called Zigeunerlager at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, having heard of the imminent liquidation of the camp, stood up against the Nazi guards armed with only hammers, pickaxes and shovels. As a result...

Why Have There Been No Great Roma Women Artists?

This year marks five years since the passing of the prominent American art historian, Linda Nochlin, who became world renowned for her 1971 ground-breaking article, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”[1] Unfortunately, Nochlin will not bear witness to this year’s 59th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale[2] that promises to be a ground-breaking long-overdue...

How to Tell Stories that Matter? ERIAC brings Manifesta 14 to Belgrade

it matters what worlds world worlds. how to tell stories otherwise… Manifesta 14 Western Balkans Expert Talk 16 May 2022 The 14th Edition of Manifesta, the European Nomadic Biennial, will take place from 22 July until 30 October 2022 in Prishtina, Kosovo. Organised for the occasion of the biennial, Manifesta 14 has set up the...

Venice Biennale Dispatch: Daniel Baker, Getaway 2022

Daniel Baker’s preoccupation with the contingent nature of Roma material culture is highlighted in the conceptual artwork Getaway, an installation designed to occupy the public square at the entrance to Eugen Raportoru: The Abduction from Seraglio, & Roma Women: Performative Strategies of Resistance, at Biennale Arte 2022. Getaway is defined as: an act or instance of...

Official Opening! The Abduction from the Seraglio, 59th Biennale di Venezia

Over the course of the 127 year long history of the Biennale, the exhibition commissioned by ERIAC for the 59th International Art Exhibition is only the fourth occasion when a presence of Roma art is ensured. The current cultural underrepresentation of work made by Roma coupled with the continuing stereotypical representation of Roma by non-Roma...

Re-Enchanting the World: Collaboration instead of Competition

Interview with Wojciech Szymański and Joanna Warsza, co-curators of Małgorzata Mirga-Tas’s exhibition in the Polish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. What is the exhibition concept and the journey behind it? Wojciech Szymański: The concept for the exhibition Re-Enchanting the World was born late last summer. On the one hand, with its title, the exhibition refers...

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas: I Set Out to Re-Tell the Roma Story

Re-enchanting the World – a conversation with Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, the artist representing Poland at the 59th International Art Exhibition Your monumental work in the Polish Pavilion refers to the famous “calendar” cycle of frescoes from the Renaissance Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy. How was the idea for this project born? MMT: The project is an...

Eugen Raportoru’s exhibition includes marginalised perspectives and creates a platform for feminist artmakers

RomaMoMA interviews curator Ilina Schileru. You are both an artist and a curator. How have these two practices influenced each other within you? Ilina Schileru: It all started with my need to create a community as an artist, and I envisioned it as an artist-led community. That is when I began negotiating for a space...

The Biennale is a Red Carpet for Artists

RomaMoMA interviews Eugen Raportoru. Among the most recognised painters of his generation in his country of origin, Eugen Raportoru (Bucharest, 1961) has always taken pride in his Roma origins. His recent experiments in installation narrate past memories from his childhood and often contain self-referential elements through which he creates a hidden genealogy of the unspoken...

RomaMoMA Library ft. FARIJA MEHMETI at Manifesta 14

  Manifesta 14 Prishtina_Co-Producing Common Space and Shaping Formations of Solidarity in the Western Balkans and Beyond – M14WB 22.07 – 30.10.2022 RomaMoMA Library ft. FARIJA MEHMETI Roma Rajni Curated by Timea Junghaus   By joining Manifesta 14 Prishtina_Co-Producing Common Space and Shaping Formations of Solidarity in the Western Balkans and Beyond, ERIAC ensures that...