A place to call our own': Europe's first Roma (coll. gypsy) cultural centre opens in Berlin

A place to call our own': Europe's first Roma (coll. gypsy) cultural centre opens in Berlin

Groundbreaking institute to showcase and promote artistic and cultural contribution of Europe’s 12 million Roma people
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Polish Roma artist Gosia Mirga and her son Ignacy, six, with her paintings. Photograph: Piotr Malecki/Panos for the Open Society


As a boy facing bullying and discrimination for his Roma identity in his native Albania, Sead Kazanxhiu said he had harboured a simple dream: “To be considered equal to those around me. It was the same dream as our forefathers,” he said. “To not have to hide our identity in order to survive.” The 30-year-old visual artist, who trained as a painter at the University of Arts in Tirana, is at the forefront of a groundbreaking institute launched in Berlin on Thursday to showcase and promote the largely invisible artistic and cultural existence of Europe’s estimated 12 million Roma people. “We’ve been living in Europe for 600 years,” Kazanxhiu said, speaking in Romanesque. “Now for the first time we have a place we can call our own and the chance to present the image of who we are, rather than others doing it for us.”

The European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (Eriac) will be led by Roma artists, activists and scholars. Supported by the German government, the Council of Europe and the philanthropist George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, it will promote Roma culture as well as contribute towards overcoming the deep-rooted hostility and discrimination directed against Roma communities across the continent.

“For hundreds of years, it’s been non-Roma who have monopolised the popular representation of the Roma,” said Timea Junghaus, a Hungarian Roma curator and activist who is the Eriac’s executive director. “The stereotypical view of us is as a romanticised, sexualised, criminal people. The effect is false and destructive. Now we’re claiming our own right to represent ourselves,” she said. “Self-expression will hopefully challenge these long-held assumptions and prejudices.”

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Berlin is seen as an ideal location for the institute, not just because of its geography, but because of its vibrant art scene and its status as a magnet for young Europeans. The government’s support for the centre and its pledge on Thursday that it will support the institute indefinitely, has been vital for the project to work. Inevitably, the commitment also has much to do with the government’s sense of responsibility towards rebuilding the Roma cultural legacy in Europe. During the Holocaust, an estimated 500,000 European Roma were murdered by the Nazis. While Germany has long addressed the Jewish Holocaust, recognition of Roma victims has taken far longer. A memorial to murdered Sinti and Roma was finally erected in Berlin in 2012 after years of debate. The city is home to a growing number of Roma from across Europe’s diverse communities.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/08/roma-artists-launch-art-cultural-centre-institute-berlin