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International festival celebrating the launch of RomArchive presents Romani arts and cultures at the Academy of Arts in Berlin
In January 2019, RomArchive – Digital Archive of the Roma, will be launched. RomArchive—funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation—will make the arts and cultures of Roma visible and illustrate their contribution to European cultural history. Through narratives told by Roma themselves, RomArchive will create a reliable source of knowledge that will be accessible internationally on the internet to counteract stereotypes and prejudices with facts.
In terms of content, 14 curators have defined the presentation and select exemplary artistic contributions for the archive sections on dance, film, literature,music, theatre and drama, visual arts, and the interdisciplinary field of flamenco, as well as material on politics of photography, personal testimonies related to the persecution of Roma in National Socialism and scientific material on the civil rights movement. The archive's ever-expanding collection exemplifies the enormous range and diversity of cultural identities and national idiosyncrasies as an integral part of its approach, rather than conveying an unrealistic image of a homogeneous "Romani culture". Here, the wealth of an artistic and cultural production—centuries old, lively and varied to this very day—will become visible and publicly accessible for the first time in such a wide scope.
To mark the launch of the archive website, the interdisciplinary festival “Performing RomArchive” will show the wealth and diversity of Romani cultural and artistic production. The programme in Berlin, Bucharest and Budapest will surprise, inspire and stimulate discussion.
For in European cultural institutions the diverse cultures of Roma are still largely ignored and to this day there is hardly a place in Europe where they can tell and present their own arts, cultures and history. Roma have played a significant part in European cultural productions over the centuries and still do—for example, in the music of Flamenco or Balkan Brass. Through images and stories, the archive website, which is edited in a magazine-like and user-friendly way, provides a lively introduction to the individual topics. It is an opportunity for majority societies to ascertain the richness of their culture, to which Roma have contributed much more than most people are aware, and a way for minority representatives to reclaim their own arts, their own art history and their own cultures.
Opening Festival "Performing RomArchive"
Grand opening
24–27.1.2019: Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Exhibitions: 25.1.-3.2.2019
Further dates
28.2.2019, Jewish Theatre Bucharest: lectures, readings, music, theatre
7.3.2019, Central European University and Gallery8, Budapest: Discussion, exhibitions
The detailed festival programme can be found at blog.romarchive.eu.
RomArchive has strong partners: The German Federal Cultural Foundation supports the project with 3.75 million euros. This is a clear signal: One of the largest public foundations in Europe is dedicated to Europe's largest minority, recognizing and promoting the richness of its centuries-old culture. The European Roma Cultural Foundation and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma assisted the project from the very beginning. The Goethe-Institut supports the work of RomArchive and accompanied it with events. The Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film und Fernsehen is the cooperation partner for the technological implementation. The Federal Agency for Civic Education is involved in the promotion of RomArchive and supports the editorial management of the archive for a further five years from 2019 onwards. RomArchive is also supported by the Federal Foreign Office.
Further information
Press contact
Denhart v. Harling, press@romarchive.eu, T: +49 179 4963497
