Honorary members
Hojda & Nuna Stojka
Hojda and Nuna Stojka are honorary members of the Ceija Stojka International Found. Hojda is the first son of Ceija Stojka, out of her three children. As music always holds an important role for the family, on his mother's request, Hojda, himself a guitarist, founded the band Amenza Ketane. Nuna traveled with her mother-in-law for 22 years throughout the world. She has been the voice of texts and poems at public readings. Hojda and Nuna Stojka are actively involved in the mediation against forgetting and in transmitting History through Ceija Stojka's art. The family lives in Vienna.
Simona Anozie & Pablo Stojka
Simona and Pablo are grandchildren of Ceija Stojka and the children of Silvia, the only daughter of Ceija Stojka. Simona has been actively involved in actions against forgetting and in the Roma community in Austria for several years.
Pablo is the last grandson and Ceija's "darling". She composed lullabies for him, that is how he got his name "Aschta" - meaning "Wait A Little". Their relationship had something special, despite or exactly because of his disability. They often painted, cooked and made salt dough figures.
Sister and brother live together in Vienna, together they participate actively in actions within their community and in public.
Founding Members
The Fund members are Austrian, German and French. Around Hojda and Nuna Stojka, son and daughter-in-law of Ceija Stojka, the Fund brings together personalities from the world of art and culture including filmmakers, journalists, exhibition curators, directors, photographers, and academics.
2018 members: Karin Berger, Lorely French, Nathalie Gaillard, Carina Kurta, Noëlig Le Roux, Xavier Marchand, Célia Pernot, Matthias Reichelt.
Lorely French
Lorely French, Professor of German, Pacific University, first met Ceija Stojka in Vienna in 2003. During their ten-year friendship, Lorely co-curated with Michaela Grobbel at Sonoma State University, California in 2009 the first traveling monograph exhibit of Stojka’s artworks in the United States. Lorely is Distinguished Professor of German at Pacific University in Oregon, U.S. She authored several publications on Ceija Stojka and contributed to the digital archive RomArchive. She is author of the book Roma Voices in the German-Speaking World, New York/London, Bloomsbury, 2015 (hardback; paperback appeared in 2016), which includes sections on Ceija Stojka, and several peer-reviewed articles specifically on Ceija Stojka. French’s annotated English translation of Ceija Stojka’s memoirs and interview with Karin Berger, entitled The Memoirs of Ceija Stojka: Child Survivor of the Romani Holocaust, appeared with Camden House/Boydell and Brewer in 2022. She co-curated, with Dr. Stephanie Buhmann and Carina Kurta, the exhibit “What Should I Be Afraid Of?: Roma Artists Ceija Stojka” at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York from May 23 through Sept. 25, 2023 and „Ceija Stojka: Hope that was what strengthened us“ in the European Capital of Culture 2024. French is a member of the board of the Ceija Stojka International Association. In 2023 and 2024 she is the managing part for the NEH scholarship with Carina Kurta and Nuna Stojka on the notebooks of Ceija Stojka.
Carina Kurta
Carina Kurta, Director, Ceija Stojka International Association. Born in Austria, she lives in Marseille (FR) and is in charge of the online platform, exchange, exhibitions, the administrational part of the association and the funding. Kurta has been accompanying the Stojka’s family since 2015 and serves as a link between researchers, curators, scholars, artists, galleries, museums, the family, and the association. She helped facilitate the exhibitions in Paris, Madrid, Nijmegen, and Malmö; co-curated the exhibit at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, was working on the exhibits at the Wende Museum in Los Angeles and was co-curator with Lorely French on the exhibition "Ceija Stojka: Hope - that was what strengthened us" in the European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl in 2024.
Kurta has been preserving Stojka's notebooks; supported by the Zukunftsfond Österreich and the Antoine de Galbert Foundation from 2018 - 2020, she produced a digital archive with over 6,000 HD scanned pages and an index for study, use in exhibitions and publications.
From 2023-2024 she was collaborating with Lorely French and Nuna Stojka on a project on the notebooks with the support of the National Endowment for Humanities. In 2025, she is directing a pedagogical project, funded by the Austrian agency for education and internationalisation OEAD to offer interactive workshops for schools. www.capcult.org
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