Featured

Last week we posted the video documentation of the Restitution panel discussion within the online conference, Critical Approaches to Romani Studies, organised by the Romani Studies Program at Central European University (CEU), in partnership with ERIAC and OFF-Biennale Budapest, 31 May 2021. Today we post Part 1 of the transcript. The panel was introduced by...

Panel discussion within the online conference, Critical Approaches to Romani Studies, organised by the Romani Studies Program at Central European University (CEU), in partnership with ERIAC and OFF Biennale Budapest, 31 May 2021.  Recent struggles for racial justice and decolonisation have forced cultural institutions, museums, and galleries all over the world to critically reflect upon their...

The evolving concept of a Roma Museum has a crucial role to play in reclaiming access to our cultural histories, but questions remain regarding its future form. Possibilities range from a mobile museum to a dedicated building, but while debate continues, perhaps a more oblique take on the subject—a Roma MetaMuseum—might move us closer toward...

  The campaign, part of the wider ‘Proud Roma Free Europe’ initiative, aimed at encouraging Roma to declare their ethnic identity in national censuses across Europe in 2021 and 2022 In partnership with the Roma Initiatives Office (RIO) of the Open Society Foundations and the Roma-led civic initiative Opre Roma, the European Roma Institute for...

I have been asked to offer my opinion regarding the concept of RomaMoMA, an institution putting on display contemporary art. Mine is an opinion that comes from a seasoned non-Roma observer of contemporary Roma art scene, a Poland-based critic and curator. The emergence of an establishment like this poses a number of questions, the first...

Throughout 2021, ERIAC is leading the Proud Roma Free Europe transnational campaign to boost Romani pride and identity in a year where many countries are conducting their national censuses. For this purpose, ERIAC is seeking to engage the best creative talents from our communities to inspire our people to stand up and be counted. More information...

This week, we feature the Roma Resistance and Resilience exhibition, currently on view at ERIAC Art Space Berlin, with another version of the show on view at the newly opened ERIAC Serbia in Belgrade. We can only comprehend the 600 years of resilience and survival of the Roma minority in Europe if we recognise the...

RESIST![1] illuminates 500 years of anti-colonial resistance in the Global South, shining a light on colonial oppression and its effects up to the present day. The exhibition pays homage to all the women, men and children who have resisted in multifaceted ways and whose stories remain mostly untold or unheard. Numerous works by contemporary artists...

The Transnational Romani Resistance March video is out!   This year on May 16th 2021, we, the Roma community in Europe, came together in a transnational initiative – across borders, generations and genders – to mark the 77th anniversary of the Romani Uprising at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp.  Together, we held Romani Resistance marches and commemorative activities in around...

The First National Exhibition of Self-Taught Artists in Hungary was already organised by Ágnes Daróczi in 1979, in order to bring into the limelight talented Roma artists; yet, the third such display, in 2000, continued to be held in the Museum of Ethnography (Budapest), rather than an institute of contemporary art, as if the exhibits were manifestations...

  Online conference organized by the Romani Studies Program at Central European University in partnership with the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture   31 May – 4 June 2021   Abstracts and biographies Roma have been an object of academic inquiry for centuries. In spite of the increasing number of articles, studies, and...

  “ROMA(NI) PAST – EUROPE’S FUTURE. WHY EMBRACING EU’S LARGEST ETHNIC MINORITY MATTERS”   Hosted by EUROPEAN ROMA INSTITUTE FOR ARTS AND CULTURE (ERIAC)   MAY 21, 2021 10.00 – 17.00 (CET)     On May 21, 2021, ERIAC had the pleasure to deliver an online course for the staff members of the European Commission....

The works of Mara Oláh (1945-2020), internationally acclaimed contemporary Hungarian Roma painter of outstanding talent, are presented at the current edition of OFF-Biennale Budapest, within the framework of the RomaMoMA programme. The selection on view forms the basis of a small, yet clamorous (!) event series. Omara (her artist name, or nom de guerre(!)) was...

Roma Resistance and Resilience   Exhibiting Artists: Daniel Baker, Rifet Bajramović, José Manuel Fernández Cortés, Lajos Gabor – Joar Nango, Ľuboš Kotlár, Renata Roxana Mihaly, Estefanía Ruíz (Mil Duquelas), Zita Moldovan (Loly), Norbert Oláh, Marina Rosselle, Selma Selman, Zoran Tairović Artists’ Biographies On view in the galleries at ERIAC Berlin and ERIAC Serbia in Belgrade 16...

The third edition of OFF-Biennale Budapest, INHALE!, takes the seminal political poem “A Breath of Air!”  (1935) by 20th-century Hungarian poet Attila József as its starting point. The research and online exhibition project, Order and Dreams, a cooperation between OFF-Biennale and the Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives, presents the political and social context of the...

The Caricature Competition has found its winners! To commemorate the uprising in the Auschwitz concentration camp on 16 May 1944, on Romani Resistance Day, the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) announced an international competition for Roma visual artists, graphic designers, cartoonists, and talented individuals to submit their political drawings, cartoons and caricatures....

Keeping the flame of Romani Resistance Alive Join the Transnational Romani Resistance Week   On May 16th 2021, Romani communities across Europe will be lighting fires to mark the 77th anniversary of the Romani Uprising at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. On that day in 1944 Roma prisoners of the so-called Zigeunerlager at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration...

The following text accompanies Norbert Oláh’s installation during OFF-Biennale Budapest (on view 23 April – 30 May) in front of the former building of the Roma Parliament. The bricks of his wall have clearly legible words on them, representing concepts and perceptions that are ingrained and instilled into us. These comprise the wall of anxiety....