On the occasion of the upcoming International Roma Day on April 8, the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture – ERIAC is planning a series of online and offline events in multiple European cities, focusing on selected themes of Roma arts and culture. Here is an overview of ERIAC’s planned activities and collaborations for April 8, 2022:
INTERNATIONAL ROMANI DAY
APRIL 8, 2022
ERIAC Serbia
‘Culture as Inspiration’ panel discussion and musical performance
April 8, 2022 // 11:00h – 13:00h
Majke Jevrosime 51, 11 000 Belgrade
The European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture Serbia (ERIAC Serbia), together with the Regional
Cooperation Council’s Roma Integration project and the Opre Roma Serbia civic movement will mark
this year’s International Romani Day on April 8th with a live panel discussion, Culture as Inspiration,
hosted at the ERIAC Serbia gallery space in Belgrade.
Invited panelists Osman Balic – president of the Roma League, Jelena Reljic – sociologist and activist of Opre Roma Serbia, Dragan Ristic – musician and producer, and Zoran Tairovic – multimedia artist, will discuss the Roma movement through the lens of Roma arts and culture.
The panel discussion will be followed by a musical performance featuring Iva Barcic and Very Naiss.
The event will be streamed online on ERIAC Serbia, RCC and ORS Facebook pages.
ERIAC
‘G O S S I P S’ Exhibition
April 7 17.00 – August 31, 2022
Reinhardtstraße 41-43, 10117 Berlin
On the occasion of International Romani Day, ERIAC is hosting three young and upcoming Roma
artists Luna De Rosa, Dariya Kanti and Nataliia Tomenko in the exhibition G O S S I P S.
Dariya Kanti (1991, lives and works in Tashkent, Uzbekistan) and Luna De Rosa (1991, lives and
works in Berlin, Germany) are this year’s artists in residence in Florence, Italy as part of the
cooperation between Villa Romana and ERIAC. Featuring the two awardees and former artist in
residence for ERIAC Nataliia Tomenko (1994, from Kremenchuk, Ukraine, and currently living and working in Vienna, Austria), the exhibition welds together three artistic positions that bring together notions of Roma identity, feminist strategy and ecology while staying true to their specific aesthetics and methodologies.
It is in borrowing feminist historian Silvia Federici’s reading of the word gossip that these three voices tune in together and resist and build worlds effectively: “In early modern England, the word ‘gossip’ referred to companions in childbirth not limited to the midwife. It also became a term for women’s friends, with no necessary derogatory connotations. In either case, it had strong emotional connotations.” [1]
[1] Silvia Federici, Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2018), 35-36.
Stadtmuseum Berlin and BERLIN GLOBAL
‘Civil rights, art and visibility’ panel discussion and film screening
April 9, 2022 // 16:00
Humboldt Forum, Schlossplatz, 10178 Berlin
To mark International Romani Day, representatives of Sinti and Roma organisations in Berlin discuss
interconnections between art and politics, the past and present, Berlin and Europe in their work.
The event is part of the Open Space presentation “Citizens with Equal Rights” by the Documentation
and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma. Podium speakers include Dotschy Reinhardt
(Landesrat Deutscher Sinti und Roma Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.), Timea Junghaus (European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture e.V.), Milan Pavlovic (Rroma Informations Centrum e.V.) and Iosif Stavarache (student, activist). Moderated by Michaela Bechtel-Hirsh (Solidarisch gegen Hass).
The discussion is framed by the short film “Proud Roma” (2022) by Pablo Vega and a performance by the jazz band Sinti Swing Berlin.
European Youth Centre Strasbourg
ROMA YOUTH TOGETHER 2022
April 6-7-8, 2022
30 Rue Pierre de Coubertin, 67000 Strasbourg, France
On the occasion of the International Roma Day, the seminar Roma Youth Together 2022 will bring
together 30 young people who are youth leaders or youth workers in Roma and Travellers communities. It is organised by the Youth Department of the Council of Europe in cooperation with
Phiren Amenca International, ERGO Network and the European Roma Institute of Arts and Culture.
The seminar aims to re-connect Roma youth leaders with European youth policy processes and
exchanges on strategies and priorities for youth empowerment and participation.
—
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, ERIAC has shifted some of its activities to provide support in response to the plight of Ukrainian Roma:
“SUPPORT ROMA PEOPLE OF UKRAINE” Fundraiser
ERIAC and our Ukrainian partner АРКА − Агенція адвокації ромської культури (ARCA – Youth
Agency for the Advocacy of Roma Culture) have launched a funding campaign to provide
humanitarian help for Roma and other vulnerable victims of the war with Russia. Donations are
collected via gofundme and will be distributed locally to the most vulnerable families.
Link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ERIAC-support-for-the-brave-people-of-ukraine
ERIAC Documentation teams
To record and document Roma action to help Ukrainian Roma refugees on the borders of Ukraine,
ERIAC has deployed documentation teams in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The teams are building an archive that documents the Roma historical memory of the war, focusing on stories of
survival, resistance, solidarity and humanity, as well as providing reliable evidence of cases of
mistreatment and discrimination of Roma refugees.
#NataliiTomenkoUkrainianreports
ERIAC has engaged Natalii Tomenko, its former colleague and an ERIAC associate member from
Ukraine, to provide short video reports about the situation of Roma during the war. The video
updates are published twice a week on the ERIAC Facebook page.
Feature image: Luna De Rosa: Romnjadigitalised, 2021, collage, oil painting, 47x57cm
