Selma Selman, a 34-year-old artist based in New York, Berlin, and Amsterdam, is featured in Cultured's 2025 Young Artists list. Growing up in a Roma community in Bosnia, she helped her family strip precious metals from discarded items at their scrapyard—a ritual she now performs at venues like MoMA PS1 and the Venice Biennale, melting down the metal to create sculptures that explore value, labor, and exchange. She has participated in Manifesta 14, Documenta 15, and the 2025 Istanbul Biennial. In the interview, she discusses her professor Veso Sovilj, her foundation Get the Heck to School that supports Roma girls' education, and an upcoming performance destroying a Mercedes-Benz as a tribute to her late father.
This profile matters because it highlights a rising Roma artist whose work challenges systemic marginalization while directly transforming lives through her foundation. Selman's trajectory from a Bosnian scrapyard to the international biennial circuit exemplifies how contemporary art can address social justice, education, and cultural identity. Her foundation's success—raising elementary school completion rates in her village from 20% to nearly 90%—demonstrates art-world visibility translating into tangible community impact, making her a significant figure in discussions about art, activism, and Roma representation.