Within the framework of the ERIAC’s International Cultural Outreach Program, the international event “The Future of Roma History: Remembrance, Historical Justice and the Role of Roma Youth” was held on February 1 and 2, 2018.
The event in Kraków focused on the importance of history and memory, the practices of remembering, commemorating, and the processes of narrating and transmitting history. More specifically, the Kraków event aimed to provide a space in which different stakeholders and institutions could engage in a discussion, assessing the current state of historical and commemorative practices and discuss the future agenda with regards to Roma history. The event provided a forum in which the paths of the Roma movement, especially Roma youth activism, Roma artistic and knowledge production, as well as institutional practice and support, intersected in order to advance in the process of shaping and promoting Roma historical narratives.
It provided an opportunity for outstanding Roma and non-Roma scholars, activists, institutional representatives and artists from different countries to exchange ideas about Roma history and future approaches, as well as the newest findings.
“The Right to Look”, the privilege to listen
The event was inaugurated with a showcase of Roma art.
On February 1, the opening of the exhibition of Romani artists “The Right to Look”, curated by Delaine Le Bas and Dr. Wojciech Szymański, was inaugurated at the Contemporary Arts Gallery Szara Kamienica, located on the Main Square in Kraków. The exhibition included the artwork of Delaine Le Bas, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Andrzej Mirga (photographs) and Krzysztof Gil; and was inaugurated by the curators, by Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Deputy Director of the ERIAC and by Dr. Michael Groß, General Consul of Germany.
The exhibition created under the curatorship of Szymański and Le Bas takes the photographs of Andrzej Mirga as a point of departure. Towards the end of the 1970s, as a Polish Romani and then a student of ethnography at the Jagiellonian University
Photographs of the exhibition: ERIAC