School of Health Sciences and Social Work
Reclaiming ‘Gypsy’ Art as activism.
Tue, 30 Oct 2012 12:10:00 GMT
Annabel Tremlett of the School of Health Science and Social Work teamed up with Traveller artist Delaine Le Bas to write a paper presented at the recent University Association for Contemporary European Studies Annual Conference held in Passau, Germany in September 2012. The two met whilst working on an art project on a Travellers’ site near Southampton, which stimulated many conversations about notions of inclusion, Roma activism and the benefits and challenges of local community projects. Delaine Le Bas comes from the perspective of the artist-in-action along with the experience of growing up in an English Romany family and creating networks with Traveller, Gypsy and Roma artists across Europe. Annabel Tremlett brings knowledge of social inclusion in European discourses, along with an understanding of self-representations from her ethnographic work in Hungary with Roma children and their families.
The paper sought to explore the importance and opportunities for creativity and art works in understanding and enacting social inclusion. “If the representation of Romani identity is a process of ethno-genesis which involves the Roma self-consciously playing with their identities” says leading Romani scholar-politician Nicholae Gheorghe , “then perhaps we must recognize that constructing effective representations involves the artist as much as the scientist or politician." Yet Roma artists have yet to gain the status of Roma political activists whose involvement in political processes and social change are both recognised and critiqued (Klimova-Alexander, McGarry). This article attempts to redress what Timea Junghaus has called the “condemnation to anonymity” of Roma artists (Junghaus 2006: 7) by considering the work of two prominent artists in this movement: Delaine Le Bas and Damian Le Bas. Their experiences - from exhibiting at the Appleby horse fair to being central to the first Roma Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2009) - provide a fascinating insight into the ways artists are working towards both self-expression and social change.
This article drew on work carried out by Delaine and Damien along with a recorded conversation about the artists’ experience of ‘Roma art’. Alongside fighting stereotypes, the artists also explained how their desire to make and create art is both a fundamental need for self-expression above and beyond any political motivation, but at the same time the politics never ceases as does their desire to bring about social change. Their successes in engaging with people and politics through their art shows ‘inclusion’ in a different light to those currently used in European institutional settings, moving away from dominant discourses on the economic benefits of inclusion and towards social change through dialogue, inter-connectedness and self and group expression. The paper gained an enthusiastic response and the authors are now working on publishing it as a journal article.
By Delaine Le Bas and Annabel Tremlett