The Role of Artist Residencies in the Promotion of Roma Contemporary Art

Share

For centuries, art-loving benefactors regarded the offering of guest studios to individual artists as a kind of romantic patronage, enabling artists to live and create in bucolic settings. Artist residencies provide artists with the time, space, and materials they need to create new work or to focus on their artwork-related research. Moreover, residencies are important career boosters because they provide artists with the opportunity to form relationships with their peers and receive mentoring from influential artists and industry professionals.

The vast majority of Roma artists, however, lack the prerequisites to be invited to many artist residencies. This system tends to exclude self-taught artists, artists who have not graduated from arts programmes at elite white institutions, and artists who do not have powerful advocates. The consequence of so many Roma artists being shut out of higher tier residencies is that they remain with lower industry status, receive little publicity, achieve fewer museum acquisitions, and their work is sold at lower price points.

Since 2020, the joint programme of Villa Romana Florence and ERIAC has been the premier residency for artists of Roma descent. During our webinar, we will discuss the role of art residencies in advancing individual careers and the promotion of marginalised cultures. The cultural managers behind the trailblazing initiative, Angelika Stepken of Villa Romana and ERIAC’s Timea Junghaus will be joined by the 2021 artists-in-residence L´uboš Kotlar and Norbert Oláh, to discuss the pros and cons of this kind of positive action targeting ethnicity in the field of arts and culture.

This webinar is organised within the framework of WEAVE – Widen European Access to Cultural Communities Via Europeana and RomaMoMA, a project of IMEI – International Membership Engagement Initiative.


The ERIAC WEAVE LabDay aligns with the WEAVE capacity-building strand of the work, which explores the ethical dimension of the project in relation to representation. Within WEAVE, we carry out several capacity-building activities to develop a closer connection between cultural heritage institutions (CHIs), minority cultural communities, and Europeana. These pillars of the WEAVE project link directly to safeguarding principles that allow for critical reflection on ethical principles, in terms of space, access and the “effects” of a lack of access to certain residencies. Ironically, another kind of tension emerges when there is an “active invitation for underrepresented communities” – through which the residency or call becomes merely an exercise that ticks all the right boxes and appears to be inclusive, yet is removed from valuing the individual artist. Perhaps this perspective of the paradox and tension reveals the need for generating a space where Roma artists are valued and respected.

Other complex issues that emerge for Roma artists concern the application fees and processes, the gender dimension that may be tied to caring responsibilities, and the way artists are expected to navigate digital platforms and have a strong digital presence. Within this framework, the third ERIAC LabDay will explore the above context and invite our guests to reflect on their own experiences, while also offering possible alternatives and solutions.

Panel speakers: Timea Junghaus (ERIAC Executive Director), Angelika Stepken (Villa Roma Florence Director), Norbert Oláh (Artist in Residence, Villa Romana Florence, 2021), L´uboš Kotlar (Artist in Residence, Villa Romana Florence, 2021), Selma Selman (Artist)

Moderator: Katarzyna Pabijanek

Discussion held in English with Hungarian interpretation.

More information and registration: https://weave-culture.eu/2021/11/15/role-artist-residencies/

 

Leave a Reply


Related Articles

Safeguarding Our Romani Language, online conference
On November 5, the World Day of Romani Language, the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) is organizing the Second International Conference “Safeguarding Our Romani Language”, in partnership with the Council of Europe and the University of Graz. The conference is organized in the framework of the International Membership Engagement Initiative, financed by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, in connection with WEAVE (Widen European Access to Cultural Communities Via Europea...
UNCHARTED at WEAVE final conference
  WEAVE – Widen European Access to cultural communities Via Europeana is a 2-years project funded by the CEF Programme of the EU. Member of the UNCHARTED community since 2021, it supports Europeana about widen European access to intangible cultural heritage and the heritage of minority cultural communities. Last 16 September its final conference “Weaving digital culture: tangible and intangible heritage, cultural communities and the digital transformation” took place in Gir...
INCULTUM at WEAVE Final Conference
WEAVE – Widen European Access to cultural communities Via Europeana is a Europeana project funded by the CEF Programme of the EU and is part of the INCULTUM network. Focus of the project is on enhancing European access to intangible cultural heritage and the heritage of minority and local cultural communities. In Girona on 16 September 2022 was organized the final conference “Weaving digital culture: tangible and intangible heritage, cultural communities and the digital transformation”.  ...
WEAVE final conference, recordings and presentations available
Hosted by CRDI in Girona at Centre Cultural La Mercè, the WEAVE project organized on 16th September 2022 its final conference, which explored the connections between tangible and intangible heritage, cultural communities and the process of digital transformation of cultural heritage organisations. The day was preceded by the plenary meeting of WEAVE consortium, held at the premises of Arxiu Municipal on 15th September. CONFERENCE AGENDA with presentations Joan Boadas (CRDI Director...