Culture and Roma women day

As a result of the collaboration between the Romani Women’s Association of Valencia (Asociación de Mujeres Romi de València) and IVAM, we are proposing a day of reflection about the role of Romani women in culture and, therefore, in the museum and art. A day to listen and learn from the activist experiences and stories of Romani women who, from their own work experience and their positioning and defence of culture, question the status quo of the society that surrounds us and set out their fight for equality.

16:00 Welcome address by Nuria Enguita, director of IVAM.

16:15 La mujer y la cultura (Women and culture) by Séfora Vargas Martín, lawyer, author and president of the APROIDEG Organisation.

Over the years, women in general and Romani women in particular, have been subjected to confinement, silence, cultural appropriation and sexual, physical, intellectual, hereditary violence. Under the cultural mould, everything has been perpetrated naturally, it was the morally acceptable normality. Seeing these issues in the light of a humanist, feminine view, from the premise of equality and dignity as the human beings they are, is new and conciliatory. The talk will revolve around the psychological, social, cultural, political and legal aspects that continue to keep women in inequality.

17.00 h. Mi feminismo es gitano, by Silvia Agüero Fernández, Asociación Pretendemos Gitanizar el Mundo.

To end the day, we will do simultaneous guided tours of a section of pieces from the IVAM collection, discussed from a gender perspective and interspersed with Romaniness. The tours will be led by the IVAM mediation team in conjunction with the women from the ROMI association.

Speakers

Silvia Agüero (Madrid, 1985) mixed-race Romani, feminist, lactivist, communicator and actress. President of the Asociación Pretendemos Gitanizar el Mundo. She contributes to Pikara Magazine, Arainfo, El diario.es, La Marea and other media. She is the author of Mi feminismo es gitano (2020) and has taken part in collective books such as Disidencia en el cuerpo: perspectivas feministas, Feminismos: miradas desde la diversidad and Mirades a la Violència Obstétrica. Silvia has co-authored Resistencias Gitanas and is editor-in-chief of the Pretendemos Gitanizar el Mundo. She is currently starring in the theatre monologue No soy tu gitana at the Teatro del Barrio (Madrid).

Séfora Vargas Martín, activist, lawyer (specialising in criminal and administrative law), author, president of the APROIDEG Organisation, the Association for the Promotion and Comprehensive development of the Romany community since 2012. She founded AMURADI, the first women only Roma university students’ association in Europe and FAKALI, the first federation of women only Roma associations in Spain. She has worked extensively on defending the rights of female workers who work in itinerant trade, representing two macro causes in the cities of Seville and Huelva. She also played a fundamental role during the state of emergency caused by COVID-19, being one of the people responsible for getting the Andalusian Government to consider itinerant trade as an essential activity during the pandemic. She is the author of El precio de la libertad, the first book written by a Romani author about gender violence, sexual abuse, religious radicalism, abortion, etc.