Nationalism and racism are on the rise again in Europe. In many countries, this is accompanied by a re-nationalisation of cultural policy and the increasing exclusion of minorities. The European freedom project, which should be based on freedom of movement and ‘unity in diversity’ (Jacques Delors), is being sharply questioned not only by today’s right-wing populists but by many different sectors of European societies. Europe’s oldest and largest transnational minority is particularly affected by this: the Sinti and Roma.

The number of SInti and Roma living in the EU is larger than the population of Greece, Portugal or Sweden. Despite this, their members continue to be disadvantaged, discriminated against and even persecuted in many parts of Eastern and Western Europe. Europe’s disagreement on key immigration issues and the increase in social injustice caused by unbridled neoliberalism are leading to an acute division and polarisation of our societies. Their minorities are often their direct victims and scapegoats.

Many people today are calling for a new narrative for a common Europe, whose nations themselves once emerged after centuries of migration. In order to convince its populations and future generations of such a European project, such a grand narrative must also include the experiences of flight and expulsion, departure from one’s homeland and arrival in a foreign land. The stories of the Sinti and Roma are exemplary for coming to terms with the past and searching for the future, which their artists, writers and cultural workers want to bring up and illustrate in this symposium.

Participants will include the exhibiting artists of the RʳOMA LEPANTO exhibition, who are themselves artists and Roma of very different generations and origins, as well as representatives of the minority, such as the ERIAC European Roma Institute for Art and Culture, the Documentation Centre of German Sinti and Roma, Italian self-organisations of the minority, and BAK Basis for aktuellen Kunst Utrecht and the Council of Europe.

Please RSVP by emailing events@ecc-italy.eu.

Programme

7th of October | 11 am
Street Procession | starting at Palazzo Bembo to Chiesa Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venezia

8th of October | 10 am – 2 pm
Public Presentations of Artists and Experts | Palazzo Bembo

9th of October | 10 am
Presentation & Press Conference | Palazzo Bembo

10am | Greetings and Introduction by the curators Miguel Angel Vargas Rubio & Moritz Pankok;

10.45am | Inputs by the conference participants and artists:
Dr. Daniel Baker (artist, curator and art theorist), Luna De Rosa (multidisciplinary artist, activist) Manolo Gómez (artist), Maria Hlavajova (artistic director of BAK, base for contemporary art, Utrech), Dr. Suzana Jovanovic (Romní free researcher and free thinker who promotes a construction of multi-knowledge about Roma* and Sinti*), Dr. Eva Rizzin (scientific head of the National Observatory on Anti-Gypsyism, at the Centre for Ethnographic Research and Applied Anthropology at the University of Verona), Tímea Junghaus (executive director of ERIAC- European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture), Dariya Kanti (artist), Dr. Adrian Marsh (researcher in Romani studies), Dr. Suzanna Milevska, Brunn Morais (artist), André Raatzsch (Head of the Documentation Department of the German Sinti and Roma Documentation and Culture Centre in Heidelberg) Romani Rose (Roma activist and head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma), Gennaro Spinelli (president of the UCRI- Union of Romanès Communities in Italy), Virginia Spinelli (Romni, writer).

Please RSVP by emailing events@ecc-italy.eu.