Imagine a place: A wasteland with rubbish everywhere. Or imagine a place that is full of tents and caravans, everything is messy and dirty. Imagine a pedestrian zone and a family standing there on the corner, singing. Imagine a crowd of people and suddenly someone’s wallet is missing.
What exactly do you see? Who are you looking at? Who lives here? Who is standing on the corner and singing? Who has stolen the wallet? Who are you thinking of? And why? Who do you think these people are?
What do you think when you find out that someone is Rom:nja?
Our brains are hardwired to organise our thoughts into categories. We have a drawer for everything so that we can make quick judgments in a world that is loaded with information. So categories are useful? Yes and no. We make judgements in fractions of a second. In these fractions of a second, we decide how we feel about the person opposite us. Whether we trust them, whether we will let them rent the flat, give them the job or even just listen to them. Milliseconds that can make our counterpart’s life very difficult.
In Rom/Human we take the audience on a performative shuttle tour and present places and stories of Macedonian Rom:nja in Düsseldorf.
