Romaday 2022: Still Hope In Paradise?

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Entitled Still Hope in Paradise? Artistic and discursive examination of future pessimism and utopia” from April 7th to May 1st, 2022, invite you to take a look into the future and into the history of equality, self-empowerment and self-representation.

Since April 8th, 1971, ROMADAY has marked the beginning of a worldwide emancipation movement for Roma* in the fight for social justice and equality. After decades of hard work, the struggles are finally bearing fruit, such as the appointment of an antigypsy commissioner by the new federal government on March 9th, 2022 displays. This should definitely be appreciated with full force.

However, current dangers such as the war in Ukraine, which also affects around 400,000 Roma* living there, the acute climate crisis or, last but not least, the strengthening of the right-wing extremists*, who again entered the Bundestag with a double-digit result, threaten these achievements. The new threats and a situation that is still catastrophic everywhere for Roma*, Sinti* and many other people who are stigmatized as “ people can look ahead with concern.

In an exhibition with works from the visual and video arts and an accompanying
program of performances, lectures, discussions, film screenings and concerts, the
initiators react to the current situation and ask: STILL HOPE IN PARADISE?”

Works by Małgorzata Mirga Tas Emilia Rigová Luna De Rosa Marcin Tas and George M. Vasilescu will be on show. The exhibition will open on April 7 with the world premiere of a performance by Wesley Goatley specially developed for this purpose at ACUD MACHT NEU. The activist highlight on April 8 is the annual Roma Day Parade through Berlin Mitte, which this year is dedicated to the topic of war and expulsion, with music, a picnic and a performance “Reclaiming the Wheel” at Rosa Luxemburg Platz, as well as a final concert by the Serbian Rap Girl Band Pretty Loud at the Maxim Gorky Theater. A workshop on “Algorithm and Democratic Public Spheres” (April) and a Forum theater play (April), both in cooperation with the youth program Wir sind Hier, is explicitly aimed at young people who are particularly affected by the question of the future.

In 2007, for the first time, the Venice Biennale hosted a Roma* self-organized pavilion entitled “Paradise Lost”. Since then , many thinkers, artists and activists have been searching for paradise lost. In 2022 it is clear: Paradise is now! But where, for whom? And how much longer?