Selma SELMAN
I Will Buy My Freedom When, 2014 – ongoing

HD video; 8’58’’ 
Courtesy of the artist © Selma Selman
Photo: József ROSTA © Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art

Selma Selman is a Roma artist and activist from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her art practice is informed by her own life story, family background and heritage, as well as the narratives of the Roma community. The artist was quick to recognise and problematise her experience of belonging as a woman to one of the most marginalised minority groups in Eastern Europe, but she is able to use her background as a resource to build her autonomous creative work and to pursue her long-term, socially engaged goals. The focus of I Will Buy My Freedom When is the institution of forced marriage, which still exists today in many Roma communities around the world, based on a long history of customary law. According to tradition, girls, often underage, are sold by their parents to the groom’s family, which is a significant source of income. The tradition also runs in the artist’s own family, where her mother was married off as a child. For five years, Selman filmed her family’s daily life, and the resulting video shows her efforts to discover and define the value of her life and the price of her freedom. That amount is $11,166. In her ongoing project, Selman is selling her artworks, clothes and hair to buy her freedom. Her goal is to free herself and her family from the burden of tradition and to help future generations achieve collective self-liberation. Selman has been an important catalyst in reducing discrimination against women in her local community, and in 2017 she set up a foundation to support the further education of Roma children in Bihać through scholarships. A key part of the programme, which mainly targets girls, is to help families and end the practice of early marriage to give children the opportunity to continue their education.

FEIGL Fruzsina