Talk: Rom*nja Contemporary Arts and the Practice of Decolonizing Representations (EN)
With Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Melanie Roumiguière and Wojciech Szymanski

Discussion with the exhibiting artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, the curators Melanie Roumiguière (Head of Visual Arts at DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program) and Wojciech Szymanski (curator and art historian, Poland), moderated by Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka (Deputy Director, European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture ERIAC).

Melanie Roumiguière has a background in cultural studies and heads the Visual Arts Department of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. She realized exhibitions at the daadgalerie with Renée Green, Paola Yacoub, Zinny/Maidagan, Iman Issa and Minerva Cuevas, among others. She was curator and exhibition director at Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum for Contemporary Art - Berlin, where she was part of the curatorial team of the project Hello World. Revision of a Collection and curated exhibitions with Mariana Castillo Deball, Michael Beutler and Gülsün Karamustafa, among others. She is the editor of the first monographs of the work of Mariana Castillo Deball Parergon (2014), Gülsün Karamustafa Chronographia (2016) and Minerva Cuevas (2023). Before joining Hamburger Bahnhof, she was a curatorial assistant for documenta 13 in Kassel and at MACBA in Barcelona. Together with Nora Lukacs, she is currently working on a comprehensive research and exhibition project on the artistic scenes and the role of internationalism in Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Wojciech Szymański, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Art History at the University of Warsaw, Poland. He is an independent curator and art critic; member of the International Association of Art Critics AICA; author of the book “The Argonauts: Postminimalism and Art After Modernism: Eva Hesse – Felix Gonzalez-Torres – Roni Horn – Derek Jarman” (2015; in Polish), as well as over 40 academic and 100 critical texts published in exhibition catalogues, art magazines, and peer-reviewed journals and monographs. He has curated over thirty group and solo shows and art projects, including several exhibitions of Rom*nja contemporary artists and Rom*nja art. His research interests include queer studies, Central European art history, postcolonialism, heritage and museum studies. He is co-curator of Małgorzata Mirga-Tas’s exhibition in the Polish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022).

Dr. Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka is an anthropologist and a Rom*nja activist, born in 1985 in Cracow, Poland. She earned her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in 2016. She is the author of policy evaluations, reports, articles, and book chapters, and co-editor of “Education for Remembrance of the Roma Genocide: Scholarship, Commemoration and the Role of Youth” (Libron, 2015) and “Re-thinking Roma Resistance throughout History: Recounting Stories of Strength and Bravery” (ERIAC, 2020), and author of “Mobilizing Romani Ethnicity: Romani Political Activism in Argentina, Colombia, and Spain” (CEU Press, 2022). She has conducted extensive research with Rom*nja communities in multiple European and Latin American countries, with a particular focus on Rom*nja political mobilization, ethnopolitics and identity construction. As a minority scholar, she has been a vocal supporter of the emerging critical Rom*nja scholarship. Throughout her academic career she has also focused on antigypsyism, Rom*nja Holocaust history, Rom*nja Resistance as well as Rom*nja youth and women’s participation. She has been an employee, member, founder, and collaborator of numerous Rom*nja organisations and Rom*nja-led initiatives around Europe. Since 2018, she serves as the deputy director of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC).

Admission and the event are free of charge on Museum Sunday. No advance registration is necessary. Due to space limitations, please be there on time.