Curating Ružake gila Making a Minority Music Culture’s Audiovisual Heritage Accessible through a Digital Exhibition

Abstract

Ružake gila is a trilingual digital exhibition in German, English and Lovari Romani dedicated to the life and songs of Ruža Nikolić-Lakatos (1945–2022), a prominent performer of Lovari Romani music in Austria. The exhibition is the result of a project at the Music and Minorities Research Center at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW). Drawing on decades of ethnomusicological fieldwork by Ursula Hemetek, archival collections housed in the Department of Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology at the MDW and the Vienna Phonogrammarchiv at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, as well as expert interviews with family members of Ruža and former collaborators, the exhibition provides broad access to her songs and related materials in a socio-culturally and historically contextualized form.

This article shares and reflects on the knowledge and experience gained during the exhibition’s creation. Beginning with background information on Nikolić-Lakatos, her life and musical career, as well as the existing literature and materials forming the basis of Ružake gila, the discussion then traces the project’s development. Further sections focus on specific aspects of the curatorial work: additional research conducted to supplement the exhibition, conceptual considerations regarding the exhibition’s content and design, technical considerations and ethical issues. The article concludes with reflections on the relevance, possibilities and limitations of digital exhibitions as a contemporary means of disseminating research within the scholarly community and communicating scholarly understanding to a wider audience. Throughout, special attention is given to the particularities of work concerning marginalized communities.