„Eugen Raportoru: The Abduction from the Seraglio”, eveniment colateral al Bienalei Internaționale de Artă de la Veneția

Deschiderea oficială a expoziției „Eugen Raportoru: The Abduction from the Seraglio”, un eveniment colateral al Bienalei Internaționale de Artă de la Veneția, a avut loc în această seară în prezența unui public numeros și a inclus un performance realizat de femei rome, printre care și actrițele Alina Serban și Mihaela Drăgan.

Proiectul „Eugen Raportoru: The Abduction from the Seraglio and Roma Women: Performative Strategies of Resistance”, curatoriat de Ilina Schileru și comisionat de European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture – ERIAC, este susținut de Institutul Cultural Român.

Expoziția poate fi vizitată de public în perioada 23 aprilie – 27 noiembrie, la Palazzo Loredan, sediul uneia dintre cele mai importante instituții de cultură din Veneția: Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti.

The European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) is proud to present Eugen Raportoru: The Abduction from the Seraglio, accompanied by Roma Women: Performative Strategies of Resistance, an official collateral event at the 59^th International Art Exhibition, curated by Ilina Schileru. In the long history of La Biennale, this is only the fourth occasion when a presence of Roma art is ensured, and the second time when ERIAC is commissioner of the collateral Roma event. This solo show of an artist of Roma origin, presented in collaboration with a group of Roma women artists and intellectuals reflecting upon, questioning and offering alternative perspectives on the main theme ofThe Abduction, represents a new milestone in European art history and an achievement of the vibrant European Roma cultural movement.

Please find the biographies of the participants in Roma Women: Performative Strategies of Resistance programming below.

ETHEL BROOKS | SCHOLAR

Ethel Brooks is Chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Sociology at Rutgers University. Brooks is a Tate-TrAIN Transnational Fellow at the University of the Arts London, where, in 2011-2012, she was the US-UK Fulbright Distinguished Chair. Brooks was appointed under President Obama to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, where she served from 2015-2020. She is Chair of the Board of the European Roma Rights Centre and member of the Bavarlipe Academy of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, the RomaMoMA Think Tank, and the US Delegation to the IHRA and its Roma Genocide Working Group. Since 2007, she is co-Director of the annual Feminist Critical Analysis course in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Brooks is the author of the award-winning Unraveling the Garment Industry: Transnational Organizing and Women’s Work. Her current book project focuses on encampment, claim-staking, and Romani futures.

IOANIDA COSTACHE | ETHNOMUSICOLOGIST

Dr Ioanida Costache is a Romani violinist, filmmaker, writer and scholar. Costache completed a PhD in ethnomusicology at Stanford University. Her scholarship on Romani musico-oral traditions seeks to make audible the counter-histories embedded in the emotive, performative practices of Romani artists. Broadly, her work investigates the intersections of race, the performance/construction of identity, cultural memory, trauma, and history as they intersect in Romani musico-oral traditions and contemporary artistic practices. She traces the legacies and afterlives of Romani history, as well as de-colonial critiques of the present. Her writing has been published in EuropeNow, RevistaARTA, Critical Romani Studies, Bridge Magazine, Barricade and Decat o Revista. She is the co-author of a children’s book about Romani history released in 2022. Costache is a two-time Fulbright grantee, currently based in Bucharest, Romania.