In Marseilles, an exhibition opened this week and until September 4 on those who are improperly called Roma, gypsies or gypsies and who prefer the term Romani communities. They exhibit their wealth and their history at the Mucem, the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations. An event that aims to deconstruct stereotypes and is called “Barvalo”.
” barvalo “. A word that signifies both wealth and pride is the term chosen by one of the five curators, Julia Ferloni, to title this exhibition. “ We wanted something for the exhibition that testifies to the pride of the Romani populations. And the Romani language is an example of this. A standardized language, taught at university. There are poets and writers “says the commissioner.
Equally important is the project. To overcome stereotypes, exoticism, the stigmatization of those pejoratively called Gypsies, Gypsies, Manouches and who prefer the term Romani. For this, Jonah Steinberg, anthropologist and initiator of this exhibition, has formed a scientific committee, mainly Romani, with researchers, artists and activists. “ Too often, the representations of the Romani populations have been made by others, without the voice of the Romani populations. he says.
Some 200 works and documents are presented. Artists were involved. Among them, Gaby Jimenez. He created a gadjo museum, the gadjo being a non-Romani person. Funny and scathing, this work is the mirror of racism. “ Me, I reversed that mirror by recreating a culture from scratch, which is called the culture of the gadjés. From prehistory to its sedentarization. By creating stereotypes around everyday facts. He drinks wine, he eats bread, he uses stone tools. He invented fire with matches. Lots of humor in this museum…”
The Romanis, neglected by history
The exhibition is historic. A story that has too often neglected the Romanies. To the great regret of the carnival and activist, Sylvie Debart. ” When my grandfather went to fight in the army, he was not of age. He had falsified his identity papers to be able to fight. We didn’t tell him ‘you, the little gypsy, you’re going home’. And afterwards, when they have been demobilized, these people are left on the side of the road. They have no more caravans, they have no more horses. And we realize that our parents, our grandparents who fought, are not recognized even though they helped to save France. »
The memory of the Romani peoples is a long series of persecutions. The exhibition returns to the Nazi Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of deportees. Perhaps even a million dead, according to some historians. Anna Migra-Kruszelnicka is deputy director of the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, associated with this exhibition.
“ When the war ended, most of the mechanisms, including the laws that sent us to concentration camps, remained. And it was not until the mid-1980s that the German authorities acknowledged their responsibility for the Romani holocaust. »
Arrived from India ten centuries ago, the Romanis are between ten and twelve million people scattered in Europe. And, last stereotype which falls, the immense majority is sedentary.