Selma Selman - Viva la Vida

Born in 1991 in the Roma community village Ruzica, in the northwest Bosnia and Herzegovina, Selma Selman is a trained and accomplished artist whose artwork was recognised regionally, in the European Union and overseas. Following her education in painting at the Fine Arts Academy in Banja Luka, she completed her MFA in Transmedia Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, New York. She has exhibited extensively across Europe and the United States and her work is included in numerous international collections. She participated in the FutuRoma Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Selman’s project ‘Get the Heck Back to School’ dedicated to empowering Roma girls through visual arts provided scholarships for their education, despite traditional Roma communities prioritising boys’ education. In 2021, she was awarded the Rijksakademie residency in Amsterdam.