Introducing "The Roma Media Archive" linked to the "Roma Pavilion" at the Venice Biennale 2011

[Nigel Dickinson]

Call the Witness, Roma Pavilion Collateral Event, "The Roma Media Archive"

54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2011

 

www.romamediaarchive.net

 

The Roma Media Archive is an accumulation of artistic, documentary and activist works produced by a wide range of Roma and not Roma artists. The varied and multi-disciplinary approach of these works shows everyday life and urgent issues that Roma communities and individuals are facing in contemporary society. Presented on this platform are many works; some which challenge racist images about Roma; or show Roma living with oppression and prejudice; there are also both individual and community based projects; which overall, in their breadth and complexity add a broader social, political and artistic context to the work physically displayed in the Roma Pavilion.

 

This project was originally initiated by Suzana Milevska, a theorist and curator, who is based in Skopje, Macedonia. She has invited a worldwide range of participating artists, to share their archives, as testimonials of their research endeavours, in solidarity with the Roma people.

 

This project and web-platform will also continue long after the Venice Biennale as an open collaborative and participatory project for the accumulation of Roma and non-Roma artists work. Outreach programs are envisaged to bring various works back to the Roma communities where they were first produced.

 

Participating artists include:

 

Bruce Barber

Sasa Barbul

Katalin Barsony

Cristiano Berti

Bodvalenke Fresco Project

Tina Carr

Edouard Chiline

Hannah Collins

Leone Contini

Nigel Dickinson

Konstantina Drakopoulou

EU-Roma

Eduard Freudmann

Zoran Kubura

Haris Kulenovic

Alexandra Gulea

Maria Kjartans

Marta Kotlarska

Ivana Marjanovic

Dusko Miljanic

Malgorzata Mirga-Tas

Tanja Ostojic

Nihad Nino Pusija

Claudia Radulescu

Eva Sajovic

Marika Schmiedt

Annemarie Schöne

Hedina Tahirović Sijerčić

Manuela Zanotti