FUTUROMA at Venice

FUTUROMA draws upon aspects of Afrofuturism to explore Roma contemporary art’s role in defining, reflecting and influencing Roma culture. FUTUROMA offers new and spontaneous re-interpretations of Roma pasts, presents and futures via a fusion of the traditional and the futuristic in order to critique the current situation for Roma people and to re-examine historical events. Imagining Roma bodies in speculative futures offers a counter-narrative to the reductive ways that Roma culture has been understood and constructed—thereby moving our cultural expression beyond the restrictive motifs of oppression toward a radical and progressive vision of Roma to come. The confluence of traditional knowledge and contemporary art practice evident within FUTUROMA combines to highlight possibilities for different ways of being. Here, artworks are rooted in the techniques and traditions of the Roma diaspora, but at the same time decisively forward-looking. The acts of remembering and imagining manifest within these artworks point toward ambitious visions of life-affirming futures and at the same time allow reinterpretation our collective pasts.

In their unique manner, each of the artworks on display in FUTUROMA variously employ and deconstruct different aspects of the primeval, the everyday and the futuristic. These objects move between the familiar and the unexpected, taking us beyond the confines of time and place to a different kind of objectivity—to a place to see anew. New site-specific works emphasise the implications of materiality—physical stuff that takes up space in the world. After all, it is the Roma’s physical presence that is continually contested, marked by questions of where and how we are permitted to exist.

As well as being a means to re-discover Roma history in an impactful and engaging way the project is a chance to envision a future where Roma truly belong. Daniel Baker, the curator states that, “As Roma we are too often told that we have no future—that we remain relics of the past. FUTUROMA draws together visions of our future to present an alternative perspective informed by all that came before and the promise of all that can be, placing us firmly in the here and now.”

FUTUROMA features 14 Romani artists from 8 countries: Celia Baker, Ján Berky, Marcus-Gunnar-Pettersson, Ödön Gyügyi, Billy Kerry, Klára Lakatos, Delaine Le Bas, Valérie Leray, Emília Rigová, Markéta Šestáková, Selma Selman, Dan Turner, Alfred Ullrich, László Varga


With the support of the: Federal Foreign Office of Germany, Council of Europe Venice Office, Open Society Foundations, Stiftung Kommunikationsaufbau, Max Kohler Stiftung, UNAR (Ufficio Nazionale Antidiscriminazioni Razziali)

COLLATERAL EVENT OF THE 58TH INTERNATIONAL
ART EXHIBITION — LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
CURATED BY DANIEL BAKER
COMMISSIONED BY ERIAC

FONDAMENTA ZATTERE ALLO SPIRITO SANTO 417

11 MAY – 24 NOVEMBER 2019