Events

20. July, 2016, 7pm

Sara Kali- The Dark Madonna
A performance by The Roma Feminist Theatre Giuvlipen
With: Mihaela Drăgan and Kristóf Horváth 

Sara Kali, the mythical character, the saint not recognised by any church, was worshipped especially by Roma women over centuries for offering them strength and support. We felt the need for such protection but also the need to offer the Roma audience spiritual safeguarding and blessings when they face everyday racism, discrimination, scapegoating, sexism, homophobia and hate (what we call in the performance “the roaring lion that wishes to devour me”). 

Our performance is an invocation of Sara Kali, the Roma saint: we address her about the Roma women who are facing today a double discrimination today in terms of individual and systemic racism and sexism, but also about Roma women living in traditional communities who have to deal with patriarchy within those communities (especially in the forms of early marriages and no access to education for girls). We create a sort of dialogue with the voice of the oppressor, a white male mask. It is an ever-changing performance. We first performed it in English in Vienna for Kvir_feminist_actziya Festival and then for the International Performance Association’s festival in Bucharest. Later we translated it in Romanian and adapted it a lot for a performance as part of the “Congregation of the Castoffs” hosted by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. In Budapest, at Gallery 8 will be performed for the first time with the Roma Hungarian actor Kristóf Horváth.

Slam Poetry with Színész Bob

Kristóf Horváth, two times National Poetry Slam Championship winner will perform classical poems and his own lyrics of slam poetry about identity and self awareness.


Mihaela Drăgan

Roma actress and playwright who lives and works in Bucharest. Her performances focus on the connection between theatre, Roma identity and social justice. In 2014, she founded Giuvlipen Theatre Company, together with other Roma actresses. Giuvlipen’s performances have a feminist agenda and are speaking about Roma women: Del Duma: Tell Them About Me (four real stories of Roma women facing early marriage), Sara Kali: The Dark Madonna, Razzing (about evictions of Roma people in Bucharest, written and performed together with evicted Roma women), Gadjo Dildo (about the hypersexualization of Roma women by non-Roma men, heteronormativity and sexuality issues in Roma communities) and Iovan (about traditional Roma families, arranged marriages and the desire of young Roma women).

Kristóf Horváth 

Born in Budapest, where he lives and works. As a theatre and film actor he has been working in theatre for 15 years (Barka, Merlin and Karavan) and played e.g. in 1 hét (awarded best hungarian short film by student jury, 2004), Sturmland (shown at the Berlinale in 2014) and Gyengébb napok (awarded best short film in Hungary, 2008). Moreover, he is two times National Poetry Slam Championship winner, founder of the Knowledge is Power group, a countrywide talent education system, and leads drama courses for kids.

Here is the full text of Sara Kali.

 The Gallery8 catalogue is at last a reality!
On December 16, 2015. At 5. p.m.
Tibor Balogh, contemporary artist,
László Beke, art historian
Csaba Nemes, contemporary artist
and Tímea Junghaus, art historian
discuss their favorite chapters.

At the launching event we would like to acknowledge the work of the many people who have made the exhibitions, events and this publication possible.The modest space of Gallery8 never hampered the commitment and professionalism of the curators, artists, cultural workers and other experts working here, and our projects were realized with the same in-depth research, scholarly rigor, curatorial and artistic responsibility and creative ambition as if all this took place in a state-of the art Roma Contemporary Art Centre. This could only happen with the generous support that Gallery8’s projects received from the International Visegrád Fund and the Norwegian Civil Fund. The support of our exhibition projects by these two international donor organizations kept us independent, and preserved our ability to remain critical, authentic and credible in the turmoil of Hungary’s problematic cultural politics.
This catalogue is a collective effort of the enthusiastic and tireless Gallery8 staff. We are particularly grateful to the editorial team, Ágota Szilágyi K., Júlia Baki, Diana Bencze, Anna Fejős and Nanna Dahler, for their invaluable contribution as they edited this publication and watched over our common vision of making the first three years of Gallery8 a period of historical significance. This could only be possible with the precise and professional contribution of Árpád Mihály, the translator and English editor of the texts.
We would also like to thank the authors and contributors for their valuable scholarship and insights. We are deeply grateful to the artists and curators working in Gallery8 in the past three years, for enriching our lives with their art, and for their supportive and kind assistance in completing this book. Collaborating with all of you has been a true privilege. Finally, but most importantly we offer this publication amicable to the Gallery8 audience.
The book of 272 pages, consisting all the exhibitions and critical reviews by Suzana Milevska, Grada Kilomba, Camilo Antonio, Angéla Kóczé and the Gallery8 Board, will be a free gift to all participants of the launching event, who request their free copy by December 15, 2015 midnight at the frontdesk@gallery8.org email address. (The price of the publication will otherwise be 5500 HUF. )

Inspired by Elvira Djangani Ose’s curatorial vision for the GIBCA 2015 proposing the notion of “history, as an open work” Gallery8 – Roma Contemporary Art Space (Budapest, Hungary) in collaboration with Gerlesborgsskolan (Gerlesborg, Sweden) curate the exhibition Gipsy Under Erasure. The exhibition uses Under Erasure (Sous rature) – the key terminology of Derrida’s deconstruction as a strategic, philosophical and practical device in order to explore the aspects of Roma life and aesthetics in present-day Europe. The Roma, Europe’s largest minority (of 10-12 million people) are subject to physical attacks, forced evictions, mass deportation,  economic exploitation, cultural depreciation and political exclusion.

Participating artists:

Daniel Baker (UK), Tibor Balogh (HU), Lada Gaziova (CZ), Damian Le Bas (UK), Delaine Le Bas (UK), Dushan Marinkovic (SE), Omara (HU), Tamara Moyzes (SK), Sead Kazanxiu (AL) Teréz Orsós (HU)

The exhibition is complemented by an extensive archival research into the stereotypes and representations of Roma, and the photographs of Miklós Déri.

Opening date: October 1, 2015, 6.30 p.m. at Gerlesborgsskolan
(Gerlesborgsskolan Bohuslän, Gerlesborg 1, 457 48 Hamburgsund, Sweden)

Opening speech:
Jesper Eng, curator, Gerlesborgsskolan
Timea Junghaus, curator, art historian

Gallery8 curated an 8th district tour for the Board of the Velux Foundation. The participants visited Gallery8, and the Hungarian Roma Parliament and enjoyed Roma gastronomical delights.

Exhibition - and Educational Program

Gallery Kai Dikhas on Prinzenstr 84.2.

Opening: August 2, 2015 5 p. m.

Opening Speech: Tímea Junghaus and Moritz Pankok

“Transmitting Trauma?” is a collaborative exhibition and arts education initiative between Gallery8 (Budapest) and Gallery Kai Dikhas (Berlin). The exhibition is connected – both physically and symbolically – with the memorial performance “Phagedo Dschi - Zerrissenes Herz - Torn Heart" and the commemoration taking place at the Memorial for Sinti and Roma murdered under National Socialism.

Artists:

Selma Selman (BiH), David Weiss (DE), George Vasilescu (RO), Manolo Gómez Romero (ES), André Jenő Raatzsch (DE-HU), Kálmán Várady (DE), Valérie Leray (DE-FR), Erika Lakatos (HU), Tamara Moyzes (CZ), Lada Gaziova (SK), Delaine Le Bas (UK), Omara (HU)

Previously unknown works from the Dark Cycle of Holocaust survivor Ceija Stojka (1933 -2013) are presented.

The exhibition is complemented by an extensive archival research into the stereotypes and representations of Roma, through the photographs of Miklós Déri.

The exhibition invites contemporary artists to reflect upon the memory of the Roma Holocaust. The artistic statements and works confront the Roma past and its relation to the stereotyping, scapegoating and anti-gypsyism of our present.  Writing into the narrative of the past by recounting Roma (his)stories serves as an inherently emancipatory act for the artists, who further demonstrate the importance of transmitting the memory in order to build dignity, pride and hope in the future.

Intellectual and psychological legacies of the Roma Holocaust are passed on between different generations. Fear is omnipresent as a result of social exclusion, stereotyping, scapegoating and anti-gypsy violence. Surviving generations carry and carry on the memory of the trauma(s) through conscious efforts in the field of knowledge production, through epistemic interventions, through artistic and individual recollections in art and the performativity of everyday life.

By re-learning the long-oppressed and unwritten history and scientific genealogy of the Roma Holocaust, and presenting it in the context of present-day anti-gypsyism (through contemporary art), we remind the next generations that history is an open-ended process, in which Roma have the capacity to question and unlearn oppressive mechanisms in order to construct a more hopeful future.

The exhibition is on view between August 2 and August 22, 2015.

Curator: Tímea Junghaus, Moritz Pankok

Consultants: PhD Éva Judit Kovács, PhD Anna Szász

Sponsors: Koch Stiftung, Norway Grants 

Collaborators: Amaro Drom

Special thanks: Lívia Marschall, Ágota Szilágyi K.

 Participants of the UCCU walk at the festival in Gallery8 - with artist Greg Hill

Visitor group: IHRA Committee of the Genocide of the Roma. Guided tour to Delaine LeBas' exhibition, followed by an informal discussion in the gallery and at the Hungarian Roma Parliament.