29 – 31 October 2024
Belgrade, Serbia

The Association EPEKA, Soc. Ent., is a partner of the ROMASOUL project, which combines the music and cuisine of the Roma minority in an innovative and creative way.

Driven by the idea of a transnational networking of different actors from Serbia, Greece and Slovenia, the project is centred around the idea of protecting and promoting Roma culture and its diversity. Musicians, researchers and activists from the Centre for Popular Music Research/CEPOM from Serbia, EPEKA from Slovenia and Qualia from Greece have conceived the ROMASOUL project in a way that focuses on presenting contemporary Roma culture as a very rich and dynamic phenomenon, and by showcasing their creative and everyday practices, they challenge the stigmatisation of Roma as invisible and marginalised.

With this aim in mind, the main outcome of ROMASOUL will be an innovative concept that creatively and unusually combines music and cooking – in the form of a music album. In addition, the project will also result in a digital audio-visual archive of culinary recipes written in the Roma language and its variants. With this project, we aim to explore and preserve European Roma oral culture, to show its diversity and potential, demonstrating the plurality and richness of Europe’s heritage.

The project will contribute to the transnational networking of artists, researchers and Roma communities involved in the research and preservation of Roma heritage, and to the networking of different audiences. We aim to create the conditions for the realisation of intercultural dialogue for a higher purpose: to create an example of good practice that testifies to the importance of valuing, understanding and respecting diversity.

By involving talented musicians from different backgrounds, with their identity struggles and musical creations, the project aims to highlight the importance of social inclusion of the Roma population, i.e. members of the Roma population who are also members of other minority and marginalised groups (LGBT+ community).

Participating organisations:

GALLERY

The project is supported by Creative Europe of the European Union, the European Commission, the Municipality of Maribor, the Slovenian Youth Office, the Ministry of Public Administration.

 

 

The Association EPEKA, Soc. Ent., is supported by: