Organisation

Pakiv Board

The Pakiv Board is the highest organ of ERIAC. The Board oversees the work of ERIAC, safeguards its values and approves the financial and activity plans.

The members of the Pakiv Board are nominated by ERIAC’s founders: the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (one member), the Open Society Institute (one member) and the Alliance pour l’Institut Rom Européenne pour les Arts et la Culture (one member). Further two members have been nominated by the Barvalipe Academy on their first meeting.

Members of the Pakiv Board

Zeljko Jovanovic

Chair of the Board

Zeljko Jovanovic is the director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Office, which supports the voices and leadership of Roma in making their power felt in the policy-making arena. Jovanovic comes from a family of Roma ethnic background which, through a belief in hard work, self-determination, and education, moved from multi-generational extreme poverty to the middle class in Serbia. Before joining the Open Society Foundations in 2006, he worked for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on elections and public policy and for Catholic Relief Services on civil society development. He also has established and led a local Roma organisation and community radio programming, as well as volunteered for Roma political parties and protested for democracy during the Milosevic regime in Serbia. He has also trained and mentored non-profit managers, advocates, and leaders internationally. Jovanovic has degrees in law from the University of Belgrade and in public policy from the University of Oxford. He also completed the Executive Education Program on Strategic Management at Harvard University. He is a member of the Aspen Institute network.

Snežana Samardžić-Marković

Member of the Board

Ms. Snežana Samardžić-Marković has been the Director General of Democracy at the Council of Europe since 2012, in charge of the Organisation’s actions promoting democratic innovation, governance, participation, and diversity. Her responsibilities include the policy areas of education and youth, local democracy, cultural policies, election assistance, the protection of human dignity, gender equality, children’s rights, and the rights of minorities, work against discrimination, democratic citizenship, and democratic responses to crisis situations. Previously, Snežana has held numerous positions in the Serbian Government including as Deputy Director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Neighbouring Countries, Assistant Minister of Defence (2005-2007) and Co-President of the Serbia-NATO Defence Reform Group, member of the Foundation Board of WADA, Minister of Youth and Sports (2007-2012), and President of the Fund for Young Talents.

Gilda-Nancy Horvath

Member of the Board

Gilda-Nancy Horvath is an artist, journalist, project manager, and communications consultant. She started her career in grassroots projects for the Romani community in Vienna, Austria. Soon after, she started working for the Austrian Public National Broadcaster ORF. She has also written numerous articles for the Romani cause and worked with many international projects connected to Romani activism, art, and politics. After 10 years in front of and behind the camera at ORF, she started educating and qualifying young Romani people in her project: “romblog.at,” where she is the Editor-In-Chief. She is also the co-founder of a record label for Romani music, fatherandbastards.com. Since 2013, she is a member of the Romani Dialogue Platform of the Federal Chancellery of Austria, consulting and discussing the implementation of #RomaStrategy2020.

Nancy Black is the artist alter ego of Gilda Horvath and produced her first song in December 2016, after being threatened by people who had spread false information about Roma in the media; they claimed that all Roma in Austria would give their support to the far-right candidate at the Presidential Elections in Austria on 04 December 2016. Horvath protested against this kind of manipulation and became a target of hate speech and defamation after that. Her rasping “Trushula” was a clear answer; this was the day Nancy Black was born. Nancy Black also produces video mixes, video installations, and digital/visual art and writing texts and poetry with a strong connection to the language Romanes and the situation of Romani people.

Dr. Iulius Rostas

Member of the Board

Dr. Iulius Rostas is a Visiting Professor at the Romani Studies Program. Between August 2016 and July 2019, he served as Chair of Romani Studies/Assistant Professor at Central European University in Budapest. He was an Affiliated Fellow with the Institute for Advanced Studies at CEU, Senior Fellow with the Open Society Foundations Roma Initiatives Office and Visiting Lecturer at the Corvinus University of Budapest. He has worked for the Open Society Foundations, the European Roma Rights Center and the Government of Romania and consulted the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the World Bank, the European Commission, and the Roma Education Fund. Dr. Rostas published “A Task for Sisyphus: Why Europe’s Roma Policies Fail” (CEU Press 2019) and is the editor of “Ten Years After – A History of Roma School Desegregation in Central and Eastern Europe” (CEU Press, 2012). In 2011 he published “Social Inclusion or Exclusion: the Rights of Persons Living with HIV in Moldova” (Cartier Publishing, 2011). He has published articles and book chapters on Roma participation, Romani identity, Roma school desegregation, Romani movement, and civil society.

Sead Kazanxhiu

Member of the Board

Sead Kazanxhiu is a visual artist from southwest Albania. He was trained as a painter at the University of Arts in Tirana (2006 – 2010), where he obtained his bachelor’s degree. Kazanxhiu comes from a family of Roma ethnic minority. This fact has profoundly shaped his childhood years in Baltez, a village nearby Fier, where he was raised in an environment sensitive to social and cultural inequalities. In a community well aware of hierarchical structures and un-privileged positions within a nation-state, the very condition of being an Albanian Roma citizen turned out to be a determining factor for Kazanxhiu’s status of an artist as well as for his overall cultural practice so far. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the issues of prejudice, exclusion, discrimination, and racism have taken center stage both in his artistic and activist work. His uncompromising position with regard to unfair treatment of Roma ethnic group presents but a platform to voice individual dissent about the racially biased dynamics that, unfortunately, continues to shape contemporary European worldviews – on a daily basis, inside and outside of official political arenas. In this sense, his image-making contributes to positive efforts of a single artist to restore the dignity of a community forcefully and unjustly cornered at the outskirts of European democracy. Kazanxhiu is also the founder of STHAN Cultural Centre, and currently, he is following the Albanian School of Political Studies.

Members of the Barvalipe Academy

Jarmila Balazova

Jarmila Balazova (1972, Brno) is a Czech journalist, moderator and Roma activist. In 1997 she graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in journalism. Between 1992-1998 she worked at the Czech Radio in the Roma editorial office, where she prepared the Roma broadcast „O Roma vakeren”. Since 1997 she has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Romani monthly „Amaro gendalos”. Since 1999 she has been working on Czech Television on a dramaturgy of programs for children and youth and has been the host of the children’s discussion program called “Tykadlo” and a talk show by Jarmila Balážová. On TV Nova presented agenda “Áčko”. From the years 2003-2014 she was editor-in-chief of the monthly „Romano voďi”. Between 2002 and 2013, she worked with Czech Radio 6 where she prepared and featured programs Human Rights Focus, Studio STOP, Interview, Focus on Young and Sciences Speech. Until 2014 she acted as chairwoman of the board of directors of ROMEA. Since 2014, she has been working as Press Secretary for Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier, since November 2015, she has been in the same position at the Ministry of Education.

Dr. Maria Bogdan

Chair of the Barvalipe Academy

Dr. Maria Bogdan received her PhD from the Film, Media and Culture Theory Doctoral Program at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 2018. She wrote her thesis about the media representation of the Roma in Hungary, and developed a multidisciplinary theoretical approach based on cultural studies for analyzing and understanding the position of Roma in the Hungarian society. Her main research interest is related to media representation, the modern forms of racism, and the questions of diversity. She has published numerous articles in English and in Hungarian related to these topics in international and Hungarian journals.

Dr. Bogdan was a visiting researcher at CEU Romani Studies Program in 2018, and prior to that position, she was a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2014-2017) and an assistant lecturer at the University of Pécs (2006-2013). She is also a Fulbright Alumna and completed part of her PhD research at Columbia University in New York. She has also studied journalism and film and has worked as a journalist at different media organisations in Hungary. Dr. Bogdan is one of the founding editors of Critical Romani Studies journal and is a member of the ERCF Board which runs Gallery8 – the first Roma contemporary art space in Hungary.

Prof Dr. Ethel Brooks

Professor Dr. Ethel Brooks is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies and Sociology at Rutgers University, New Jersey. She has conducted research on an host of sites around the world including London, Istanbul, Fall River, San Salvador, Dhaka and York City. Professor Brooks is currently working on two book projects: “Disrupting the Nation: Land Tenure, Productivity and the Possibilities of a Romani Post-Coloniality”, and “(Mis)Recognitions and (Un)Acknowledgements: Visualities, Productivities and the Contours of Romani Feminism”, both of which focus on political economy and cultural production and the increasing violence against Romani (Gypsy) citizens worldwide.

In 2011 Professor Brooks was awarded a prestigious Fulbright-University of the Arts London Distinguished Chair Award and she spent the academic year 2011/2012 at TrAIN – the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation. Part of the award supported Professor Brooks’ delivery of a lecture series in conjunction with the Tate Gallery, London.

Brooks serves as a member of numerous boards and commissions, including the USC Shoah Foundation VHA External Advisory Committee, the RomArchive, the European Roma Rights Centre, and the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. She is a member of the US Delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and its Roma Genocide Working Group.

In 2016, she was appointed by President Obama to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

Dr. Ismael Cortés-Gómez

Vice-Chair of the Barvalipe Academy

Dr. Ismael Cortés-Gómez is a political philosopher who currently holds a double academic position as a part-time lecturer at the Unesco Chair of Philosophy (Universitat Jaume I de Castelló) and as a visiting researcher at the Institute DEMOS Paz (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). Last year he was awarded a postdoctoral position at the Romani Studies Program (Central European University). His research interest focuses on the interrelation among law-culture-politics, by analyzing how ideologies constitute institutional norms, policy frames, and action programs. During his academic career, Dr. Cortés-Gómezhas been a researcher at the School of Critical Theory & Cultural Studies (University of Nottingham), the Institute for the Study of Peace and Conflicts (International University of Andalusia) and the Institute of Human Rights Bartolomé de las Casas (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid).

Dr. Cortés-Gómez has worked as a policy analyst for Open Society Foundations from 2016 to 2018, both with the Budapest and the Brussels office; he also collaborates as an associate researcher with the Brussels-based think tank Centre for European Policy Studies. He has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals and op-eds with newspapers such as HuffPost, Le Monde Diplomatique, Euractiv, and El País. His work is deeply engaged with the criticism of new forms of racism and ethnonationalism in the European Union.

Mihaela Drăgan

Mihaela Drăgan is an actress and playwright working in Bucharest and Berlin. In 2014, she co-founded Giuvlipen in Bucharest – “a revolutionary theater”, according to Reuters news agency, and a cultural phenomenon on the local scene. Giuvlipen performances have a feminist and anti-racist focus, aimed at promoting critical discourse in modern society. In 2018, Giuvlipen was present in six national and international theater festivals, with the tour “Romanian Theater is not a Nomad!” marking a record achievement for Roma theater in Romania.

In 2017, Mihaela Drăgan was nominated for the Gilder / Coigney International Theater Prize in New York, which recognizes the outstanding work of 20 artists around the world. Mihaela was one of the six finalists and the youngest artist nominated for this award. A year later, her work as a playwright received recognition, when she represented Romania again in New York, at PEN World Voices 2018 International Festival, as one of the ten most respected contemporary playwrights of the world.

Also in 2018, she had an art residency at ParaSite Hong Kong, where she set up a new artistic movement – Rome Futurism, which explores science fiction elements in Roma culture, thus intersecting Roma culture and history with the advanced technology of the future. In 2019, she will be part of the International Residency for Emerging Playwrights residency program, 2019 Focus Europe, at the prestigious Royal Court Theater in London. Over the years, Mihaela has also worked as a Trainer for the Oppressed Theater in marginalized Roma communities in Romania and held various talks on Roma rights at events such as TEDxEroilor and Creative Mornings.

Tony Gatlif

Tony Gatlif is an acclaimed French film director, screenwriter, composer, actor, and producer of Romani ethnicity. He was born in Algeria in 1948 and came to France in 1960. Starting in 1981, he has tackled the theme he now explores from film to film: Romani people from all over the world, seduced by this “community in movement” and “of great richness and diversity.” He is best known for his films dealing inspired by Romani arts and culture, including “Latcho Drom” (1993), “Gadjo Dilo” (1997), “Vengo” (2000), “Transylvania” (2006) and “Korkoro” (2009). His 2004 film “Exils” won the Best Director Award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. He was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur on 30 March 2015.

Dr. Delia Madalina Grigore

Dr. Delia Mandalina Grigore is a Rromani woman born 1972 in Galaţi, Romania. She holds a Ph.D. in visual arts, with a specialization ethnography-ethnology from the Romanian Academy, Institute of Ethnography and Folklore in 2004. She is a senior reader at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Rromani Language and Literature Section and the President of the Roma Center “Amare Rromentza”. She works in education, Rromology research (e.g. ethnography, ethnology, ethnolinguistics, folklore, oral history, and literature) and Rromani culture fields. She is the author of several works, including Introduction in the Study of Traditional Culture Elements of the Contemporary Rromani Identity (2001, University of Bucharest – CREDIS, Bucharest) and Rromanipen – Keystones of Rromani Culture (2011, Amare Rromentza, Bucharest). She is a team member for the presentation of Rromani Literature in Romania for RomArchive.

Delaine Le Bas

Delaine Le Bas was born in 1965 in Worthing, U.K. She studied at St Martins School of Art London. Delaine is a cross-disciplinary artist creating installations, performances, photography, and films. She was one of sixteen artists who were part of “Paradise Lost,” the first Roma Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2007. She worked with her late husband, artist Damian Le Bas, on their installations for their ongoing projects “Safe European Home?” and projects “Gypsy Revolution” and “Gypsy DaDa”, and in 2017 to produce the stage artworks and costumes together for the “Roma Armee”. Delaine created the “Romani Embassy” in 2015. She also has created performance text works with her son, writer Damian James Le Bas. Her works have been included in the Venice Biennales of 2007 & 2017, the Prague Biennales of 2005 & 2007, the Gwangju Biennale 2012, the Zacheta National Gallery of Art 2013, the MWW Wroclaw Contemporary Art Museum 2014, the Third Edition of the Project Biennial of Contemporary Art D-O Ark Underground Bosnia and Herzegovina 2015, the Off Biennale Budapest 2015, the Goteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art Extended 2015, and the Critical Contemplations Tate Modern 2017. Delaine is one of the curators for 1st Roma Biennale 2018 and is an Associate Curator at 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning London U.K.

Florin Nasture

Florin Nasture is a Roma advocate from Romania who holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the National School of Public Administration, Bucharest. He graduated from the Faculty of Philology and Theology at Bucharest University, where he also obtained a Masters degree in Strategic Management. In addition, he obtained a Master in Social Development Practice from London Metropolitan University. Since 1997, he has been involved in Roma Civil Society, first as a project coordinator for the Romani Criss Foundation and then as the senior manager for the Roma Education Fund. Florin Nasture has a long-standing experience in advocacy for education and health rights of those who are vulnerable. Also, he has been delivering training programmes as part of projects implemented by different organisations in the areas of community mobilization and development, conflict resolution and mediation, democratic participation, project management, and education. In all his work, Florin Nasture has been guided by the principles of community development, gaining significant expertise in civic mobilization and community empowerment.

Emília Rigová

Emília Rigová (born 1980) is a visual artist from the Slovak Republic. She is laureate of the Oskar Cepan Award (2018) for young artists under 40 in Slovakia and a laureate of the Roma Spirit Award (2018). In addition to her artwork, she teaches art courses (object, multi-media, inter-media) at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. For Rigová, an object in the form of installation or as a performance or a site-specific intervention is a basic element of her art language. Further, she expresses herself through the 2D interface of computer graphics, with reference to classical painting. Concerning the content of her work, she explores intersubjective emotion modified by a specific social-cultural environment. The last five years, her work deals with the topic of internal and external construction of Romani identity and the appropriation of the Romani body in the long history of European culture.

Romani Rose

Romani Rose (born 1946 at Heidelberg, Germany) is a Romani activist who lost 13 relatives in the Holocaust of the Nazi purges against the Romani people and Jews and is the head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. During the founding of the Central Council in 1982 he was voted to the position of Chairman by the delegates of the member organisations – then 9, now 16 state and regional associations – and since then has been confirmed in his post every four years at the member meetings. From 1991, Rose took over the management of the Documentation and Culture Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg. For years he has been known by the federal and state governments for his resoluteness and for his persistent and unyielding work.

Together with the Chairpersons of the National Minorities in Germany, Rose leads the Minority Council, which was founded on September 9, 2004. It is the union of the umbrella organisations of the four national minorities which belong to the German nation and have always been resident and autochthonous here. For three decades –since June 1979 to be exact – he has led the work for the civil rights of German Sinti and Roma before the eyes of the German as well as the international public; he has also fought for their protection from racism and discrimination, for compensation for the survivors of the Holocaust – at the same time announcing the magnitude and the historical importance of the genocide of 500,000 Sinti and Roma in National Socialist occupied Europe. In May 1995, in cooperation with the member organisations of the Central Council, Rose achieved recognition for German Sinti and Roma as a national minority in Germany with their own minority language, connected with their goal of equal participation in social and political life.

Miguel Ángel Vargas

Miguel Ángel Vargas (born 1978, Spain) is a stage director, poet, actor, and researcher. In his work, inspired by the poetics of the old, he uses material and aesthetic elements of the past to influence contemporary contexts; from his point of view, nothing – material or not – dies free of life and of a certain magical influence, especially in the universe of Theater. He earned his degree in Art History from the University of Seville, studied Stage Direction in the the Instituto del Teatro de Sevilla, and currently researching the representation of Roma theater artists on stage (Sevilla and Cádiz, 1746-1845), while also collaborating with international organisations like ERIAC or Central European University for the Roma emancipation through culture and art. Miguel has performed as a theater actor on several stages across Europe; starting in 2001 with Teatro del Velador and Teatro del Duende (Spain), Newcastle Northern Stage (London), and the historic Roma Theater Pralipe (Germany). As well as occupying different positions in the field of being an opera technician at the Teatro Maestranza, a technical director of the Teatro Quintero, and a TV stage manager for the television program Ratones Coloraos in Canal Sur TV. During 2010, he was the production manager of the show Flamenco Hoy, by international filmmaker Carlos Saura. In 2012, he was awarded Young Creators Award by the Instituto de Cultura Gitana of the Ministry of Culture of Spain.

Mihaela Zatreanu

Mihaela Zatreanu is probably one of the best Romani language teaching experts among the Roma with a broad outlook at the Romani language field. A graduate of the Pedagogical High School and Foreign Language Faculty in Bucharest, Mihaela has worked in Roma education for the past 15 years, first as a primary school teacher, then as a trainer for Roma and non-Roma educators, and educational inspector at the Ministry of Education. Mihaela Zatreanu has been developing the first curriculum for Romani language in Romania and continued her activity authoring of textbooks, publishing a series of textbooks for Romani language. During 5 years as an educational inspector in the Ministry of Education and Research, she contributed to the designing of the legislative policies for increasing the school participation of Roma, has been monitoring and guiding local programs for supplementary school assistance, and introduced the school mediator for the first time in Romania. Mihaela Zatreanu had an important role in introducing Romani language and history in state schools at national level and for the allocation of special places for Roma students at high school and university level. At the European level Mihaela Zatreanu has been working in cooperation with the Council of Europe as a Chief Executive Officer at the European Roma and Travellers Forum. She was acting several years as the educational expert for the Council of Europe, contributing to the development of the policy paper for the education of Roma children in Europe, developing the Guide for Roma school mediators, teaching materials for preschool education and the Curriculum Framework for Romania Language together with a group of European experts. She has been CoE trainer for school mediation and the National Program Officer of ROMACT program in Romania.

Veljko Kajtazi, on bahelf of the Croatian Romani Union “KALI SARA”

Croatian Romani Union, “KALI SARA” (cro., Savez Roma u Republici Hrvatskoj “KALI SARA”) continues the long tradition of the Association for Promoting Roma Education in the Republic of Croatia (UZOR). “KALI SARA” founded in 2007 by MP Mr. Veljko Kajtazi, is one of the most active Roma organisations operating in the Republic of Croatia. It gathers the highest number of Roma community members, associations of the Roma national minority, and the democratically elected Councils of the Roma national minority at the level of counties, cities and municipalities.

Today, CRU “KALI SARA” is the main partner of the Government of the Republic of Croatia in implementing the National Roma Inclusion Strategy (2013- 2020), the Operative Plan for National Minorities of the Government of the Republic of Croatia (2017- 2020) and various other programs and initiatives that aim for the improvement of the position of the Roma in Croatia. They are particularly proud about their newspaper, published in four languages (Phralipen.hr), the ongoing initiative of building the Memorial Centre Uštica, and their modern headquarters in the Zagreb City centre.

Dr. Jana Horváthová, on behalf of the Museum of Roma Culture in Brno

The Museum of Roma Culture in Brno was established in 1991, their first permanent exhibit was opened on 01 December 2005. The Museum also offers a space for research and community gatherings. The MRC holds a unique position in the world, due to its long existence and collection and documentation work and is a strong partner of ERIAC. Owing to the experience and the team of experts available at the Museum, a cooperation between the MRC and ERIAC will be beneficial and enriching.

Team of ERIAC

Tímea Junghaus

Executive Director

Tímea Junghaus is an art historian and contemporary art curator. She started in the position of Executive Director of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture in September 2017. Previously, Junghaus was Research Fellow of the Working Group for Critical Theories at the Institute for Art History at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2010-2017). She has researched and published extensively on the conjunctions of modern and contemporary art with critical theory, with particular reference to issues of cultural difference, colonialism, and minority representation. She is completing her Ph.D. studies in Cultural Theory at the Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest.

In recognition of her curatorial activities, Junghaus received the Kairos – European Cultural Price from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S., in 2008. Her curatorial works include the Roma component of the Hidden Holocaust- exhibition in the Budapest Kunsthalle (2004), Paradise Lost – the First Roma Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Contemporary Art Biennale (2007), the Archive and Scholarly Conference on Roma Hiphop (2010), The Romani Elders and the Public Intervention for the Unfinished Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered Under the National Socialist Regime in the frame of the 7th Berlin Biennale (2012), the (Re-)Conceptualizing Roma Resistance – exhibition and education program in Hellerau, Dresden (2015) and the Goethe Institute, Prague (2016). She is the curator of the Visual Arts Section for RomArchive – Digital Archive of the Roma, funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes (2015-2018).

Junghaus was the founding director of Gallery8 – Roma Contemporary Art Space (www.gallery8.org) in Budapest (2013-2017), the winner of the 2014 Catalyst Contemporary Art Award (of Tranzit Hungary) and the 2014 Otto Pankok Prize awarded by the For Roma Foundation of German writer and Literary Nobel Laureate, Günter Grass

Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka

Deputy Director

Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka is an anthropologist and a Roma activist, born in 1985 in Cracow, Poland. She earned her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in 2016. She holds an MA in European Integration from UAB and an MA in Comparative Studies of Civilizations from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (UJ). She is the author of policy evaluations, reports, and articles, and is the co-editor of the “Education for Remembrance of the Roma Genocide: Scholarship, Commemoration and the Role of Youth“ (Libron, 2015) and “Re-thinking Roma Resistance throughout History: Recounting Stories of Strength and Bravery” (ERIAC, 2020).

She has been an employee, member, founder, and collaborator of numerous Roma organisations in Poland and Spain. From 2008 to 2012 she was the European project coordinator at the Federation of Roma Associations in Catalonia (FAGIC). From 2013 to 2015 she was an Open Society Foundations Roma Initiatives Fellow, conducting a comparative study of the Roma associative movements in various countries of Latin America and Europe. From 2015 to 2017 she was the coordinator and curator of the Academic Section (aka. Roma Civil Rights Movement Section) in the RomArchive – Digital Archive of the Roma. Between 2017-2018 she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow of the Romani Studies Program at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. She serves ad the deputy director of ERIAC since January 2018.

Joanna Khandjieva

Project Assistant

As an activist and social scientist, Joanna Khandjieva has taken part in several, mainly educational projects in Hungary and India. Born in Sofia, grown up in Budapest, and living in Berlin, she can easily relate to the trans-national initiative of ERIAC to bring people together. Up until now, the focus of her work has been primarily the support and empowerment of so-called peripheral communities. She has worked with Roma communities in North-Eastern Hungary and is currently coordinating a project in the Indian Himalayas. She moved to Berlin to pursue her studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, with a focus of inter-cultural cooperation and post-colonial power relations all over the globe. As a project assistant for the ERIAC team, she is supporting the team with her administrative experience and inter-cultural vision, while learning about as well as enjoying the results of the outstanding and empowering cultural and social achievements of the Romani communities and individuals.

Neven Mesec

Project Coordinator

Neven started his professional engagement in Roma inclusion during his Erasmus+ experience gained at the Roma Decade Secretariat Foundation back in 2015. Originally from Varazdin, Croatia, Neven has been actively engaged for many years on various projects dealing with social inclusion and youth participation at local and regional level. Neven has a BA in Cultural Management and is currently completing his master studies in Political Economy at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, where he specializes in social policies and feminist economics. Currently, he is in the process of writing his MA thesis on the topic of: Impact of austerity measures on Roma Inclusion in Western Balkans – Serbia and North Macedonia. Besides his formal education, Neven has also participated in various seminars and educational trainings on the topic of human rights, equality, and social justice.

Livia Marschall

Campaign Manager

With a background in cultural anthropology, Livia’s professional interests lie at the intersection of education, art and community engagement. She joined ERIAC’s transnational census campaign initiative in 2021. Prior to that, she was program manager at Central European University’s Global Policy Academy. She has worked as a curator at Gallery8–Roma Contemporary Art Space, and has been involved in numerous community-focused projects throughout her career. She is also co-founder and volunteer of the Gólya Community House’s “Neighbourhood to Community” program in Budapest’s eighth district. She holds an MA in cultural anthropology and English language and literature from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Hungary.

Camellia Bojtor

Campaign Assistant

Born in the UK to Hungarian-Roma parents, Camellia is a dedicated and passionate communications professional with a wealth of experience. Having worked across multiple continents, including close to a decade in the Gulf with leading global PR agencies, Camellia holds expertise in corporate and strategic communications, and has worked closely with clients ranging from world-renowned and Fortune 500 listed companies through start-ups. A few of the brands she has worked with include Discovery Channel, Philips, Jamie’s Italian and Pfizer.
More recently, in her freelance capacity, Camellia has been working on specializing in content and proofreading for clients. From ideating and developing to coordinating and managing content, Camellia has developed content calendars for clients, created thought-leadership pieces, besides blogs and articles for the media, as well as managing LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media content. Her recent projects include work with the Michelangelo Foundation and supporting ERIAC in proofreading their published academic title: ‘Rethinking Roma Resistance’.

With a long-time interest in Romani studies, Camellia completed her BA in Humanities in Brighton University where she wrote her thesis on Romani identity in Hungary. Camellia went onto specialize in Romani Studies at Central European University, while pursuing her MA in Nationalism.

Eglantina Aliu

Project Assistant

Eglantina graduated with a degree in Finance Banking from the European University of Tirana, Albania. Eglantina also finished one of the Roma preparatory programs with the support of Romani Studies Program, at the Central European University in Budapest. During her studies in Albania she was exposed and volunteer through different Roma NGOs, mostly at the Institute of Romani Culture in Albania, which inspired her to join the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture. As a Roma woman at ERIAC, she is excited to support and learn how Roma women are expressing, engaging, protecting, and promoting their knowledge and culture through arts in a contemporary sense.

Katarzyna Pabijanek

Program Manager

Katarzyna Pabijanek is philanthropy and nonprofit consultant, critic and researcher. Her research has focused on feminist art theory and practice, body art and performance art from Central and Eastern Europe. Before joining ERIAC, Katarzyna lectured in the Gender Studies Program of the Polish Academy of Sciences and worked for the Open Society Foundations, where she coordinated narrative change activities on Roma health and supported grantees in Europe working to use art for social change. She holds MA degrees in linguistics from Eötvös Loránd University and in gender studies from CEU, and a PhD in cultural studies and neophilology from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.

Almir Huseini

Project Coordinator

Prior to his engagement with ERIAC, Almir Huseini contributed to the UN-International labor organization (ILO-DWT/CO), European Centre for Minority Issues, UNICEF, and UNCHR in Serbia in the capacity of a consultant, researcher/evaluator, educational social worker, implementing projects involving a high level of coordination and networking as well as intensive communication and cooperation with different stakeholders on the local, national, and international level in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region with various social and political actors. As a Roma person, he invested his interest in the protection and promotion of Roma rights and culture and those were the main reasons to study Sociology, participate in Romani Studies Program (RSP) and graduate in Public Policy at the Central European University.

Andrea Petrus

Project Coordinator

Andrea Petrus from Menorca (Spain) moved to Barcelona to study Advertising and Public Relations (UB). In 2018, she went for an international exchange at the Universidad San Martín de Porres in Lima (Peru), after that, she travelled for half a year as a backpacker around Peru and Colombia, where she discovered that she wanted to be involved in culture. In April 2019 she moved to Berlin. Andrea enrolled ERIAC in February 2020 as an intern and a year later she has been promoted to Project Coordinator. She is also coursing a postgraduate diploma in International Cooperation and Cultural Management (Universitat de Barcelona) and developing her final project regarding the Roma Holocaust.

Bratislav Mitrović

ERIAC Office Manager

Bratislav is from Arilje (Serbia), a student of final year at the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of technical science, department of Graphical engineering and Design. At the moment, finalizing undergraduate dissertation on How multimedia affect websites, focusing on preparing multimedia for use on the website implementing rules of search engine optimization (SEO).

In 2017. he participated in cultural exchange program Work and Travel USA where he spent 4 months in Denali National Park, working, backpacking and exploring untouched nature of Alaska, USA and another month traveling through the USA visiting different cities.

Bratislav participated in entrepreneurship contest, organized by Junior Achievement Serbia, where he won second place in Regional competition, qualifying to National competition where he won third place.

Interns and Volunteers

Nataliia Tomenko

European Solidarity Corps Volunteer

Nataliia is an artist and Roma activist, born in 1994 in Kremenchuk/Ukraine. Currently, she is completing her MA in Cultural Heritage Studies: Academic Research, Policy, Management at Central European University in Vienna. She holds an MA in Graphic Design from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. In parallel with that, she is working as a board member and a Creative Director at the Agency for the Advocacy of Roma Culture ARCA in Ukraine. Also, Nataliia is a National Volunteers Coordinator and Roma Rights Defender at the European Roma Rights Centre in Ukraine on a volunteering basis with the aim to support the principal’s work in defending the human rights of Romani people across Europe and fighting against digital antigypsyism. In the main time, she is dealing with the visual representation of Roma history and culture while establishing Art projects connected to Roma cultural heritage and Genocide for instance.

Aleksandra Aleksandrović

ERIAC Serbia Volunteer

Aleksandra Aleksandrović is a journalist, ethnomusicologist, and drama pedagogue.

In 2016, she graduated from the Academy of Arts (Novi Sad) in Ethnomusicology. Masters studies in Applied Theater she attended in Norway in University of Applied Sciences (Bergen) through Erasmus+ student exchange program. One of the Aleksandra’s played roles in performances are: Rumpelstliskin, Loneliness, Who am I to me – Who am I to you, Chair…

She is a composer, the pianist who is awarded the first prize for most original music for stories from radio television od Serbia.

Aleksandra has worked with children through her master’s research “Interculturality through teaching units mathematics and music”. On the one hand, she brings together children with different ethnic and religious backgrounds through theater technics, on another hand she connects mathematics and music and shows how can they learn with different, useful methods.

Since 2019, Aleksandra works in the Television of Vojvodina as a TV presenter on news and journalist, in Roma redaction and informative redaction.

For more than 10 years, Aleksandra has been working in Roma and non-Roma NGOs for Roma children’s education and preparing them for their better future.

Jasmina Ristić

ERIAC Serbia Volunteer

Jasmina is a peer educator and Roma activist. She has been active in the youth sector since she was 15. She is a United Nations volunteer and coordinator of youth policy in the Association of Young Roma of Serbia. What she wants to accomplish is that every Roma girl has access to education and achieve her full potential.Currently, she’s a third year undergraduate student of Psychology. Jasmina is interested in cultural research and she wants to save her cultural heritage, because she thinks that one nation exists as long as its culture lives.

Mirjana Sulejmanović

ERIAC Serbia Volunteer

Mirjana Sulejmanović is a pharmaceutical technology engineer from northern Serbia. She is currently studying for a master’s degree at the Faculty of Technology in Novi Sad. She is an activist and with her efforts she tries to improve the position of young Roma in Serbia. She was hired as a UNDP volunteer in the period from May 2020 until today, she participated in workshops organized by RYCO, which include working with young people. During her engagement so far, she enjoys visiting Roma settlements in her city the most. There She makes contacts with the Roma community, collects information about their needs and tries to help them solve the problems they face every day. In solving everyday problems, She tries to use her knowledge of engineering that she acquired in her studies. In addition to working with the community, she is very interested to working in the laboratory, where she tests the application of green technologies in the pharmaceutical industry with her team.

Dragan Marić

ERIAC Serbia Volunteer

As a teenager, he became interested in tattoos and body art. In 2009, he opened his own tattoo studio Kimo, which is still active.

In 2010, he enrolled at the University of Fine Arts where he graduated in 2015 from the Painting Department, under the supervision of professor Mileta Prodanovic.

He presented his work in several collective and individual exhibitions. His last gallery exhibition was in 2016 at the FLU art gallery in Belgrade.

Lately, he has been keen on street art, which is closely linked to activism. In this sense, the last event he organized was an exhibition on air pollution in 2019 – “To Valjevo take a breath”

Currently, he is working on a historical fantasy comic book, in which the protagonist tackles the issues of our modern society.

Last year, during the covid-19, he completes a course in earth architecture under the supervision of professor Dragana Kojic.

A few years ago, he started to play Carrom also known as Indian Pool. He has been on the Serbian National Carrom team since 2016 and participated in several European championships. And, even though it doesn’t have much to do with art, he is very proud of it.

After graduating from university, Dragan traveled to Austria and Germany as a visiting tattoo artist. He also visited the city of Toulon in France, where he got married.

Last year his wife and he decided to return to his home town Valjevo. They hope they can establish a cultural center in a Romani settlement Bair. They also have started an art organization in Serbia under the name Karavan Serbia where about 30 students are attending their art classes.