"Romani Black Panthers" undertake "guerilla action" in a Prague supermarket

On Tuesday, 24 March, the art group Romane Kale Panthera (Romani Black Panthers) presented an exhibition at the Hraničář Gallery in Ústí nad Labem about their "guerilla action" called "Happy Pork from Lety" ("Veselý vepřík z Letů"). Through this action, the group attempted to draw public attention to the fact that a pig farm still stands on a Romani Holocaust memorial site in Lety by Písek, that the Czech Government promised to get rid of the farm in the 1990s, and that the state has still not bought out the farm.

The action itself took place on 20 March, when members of the group put stickers on pork for sale at a supermarket in the Prague neighborhood of Holešovice that read "Produced from pigs raised over the graves of Romani Holocaust victims. Uncooked."

"This was a secret operation, Tamara Moyzes put the stickers on, Věra Duždová kept an eye out, and I filmed everything. In order to keep it secret we did not focus on the responses of the customers in the store, but we haven’t heard of any negative reactions," David Tišer, a member of the group, told news server Romea.cz.  

Those interested in participating can download the stickers from the group’s Facebook page and spread awareness of the scandal of the Government’s inaction themselves. The exhibition, called "Banned Art and the Natural Development of Non-Existence" (Zakázané umění a Přirozený vývoj neexistence) is dedicated to projects that draw attention to unsatisfactory public funding policies, corruption, political interests and areas ignored by state institutions.

In addition to this action, Tamara Moyzes also presented a project at the exhibition in which, using objects found in dumpsters, she responds to a Hungarian law banning people from removing garbage from dumpsters under the threat of a fine. The law targets the socially vulnerable.

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