Role Models, 2010
Portraits of individual Romanies who because of their outstanding achievements as artists, actors, writers break the stereotypes of a ‘Gypsy’ and act as Role models in their communities. The photographs were taken in subjects' home environments and together with accompanying written accounts and recorded testimonies show the current situations and concerns of these people and their communities.
| Bobby Rostas Roma Actor East Ham, 2009 | |
| 'I’ve been in a couple of Hollywood films, of course which was very very interesting experience for me because I got to meet a lot of very interesting people, and interesting directors and actors such as Ridley Scott who directed the Gladiator film and Russell Crowe and Clint Eastwood as well, so not many Roma gypsy people get to meet the famous people which I had a chance to meet. I am not Traveller Gypsy. I just want to find a place that I can stay. That goes for almost all our Roma people. I don’t like to travel in different areas for example, I don’t have wagons or horse to go to different areas. We just want to get our own place and live somewhere quietly and not to be pushed out from other places. Some people want to live away from the city because when they hear, or they know that they’re gypsy that’s the only reason they move away because they know that people treat them differently.' |
| Damian Le Bas Romany Journalist and Dramatist Stockwell, 2010 | |
| 'I’ve been writing little stories since when I was a small child and I dreamed of doing a book (All Change! Romani Studies Through Romani Eyes with Thomas Acton, 2010) since when I was probably eight or nine, when I first got into books. I didn’t think the first book I would do would be like this, like an academic volume of essays, but it’s good. I more write drama really, plays, drama for the radio and hopefully for the TV soon. And I’m doing a graphic novel.' with two friends of mine about a bicycle courier who fuses with his bike. I like all kind of books, short stories. I work for, as well as the BBC and the Romany theatre, I work for Travellers Times, which is Britain’s only magazine really that’s for Gypsies and Travellers and where they can share news and advertise things to each other and share a bit of reminiscence and storytelling.' |
| Delaine Le Bas Romany Artist Worthing, 2009 | |
| 'And this whole thing about people migrating, which people seem to just put on Gypsies to a degree, is like a... it’s a natural thing, that’s what humans have always done. In order to survive you migrate. Birds migrate all the time and why do they do that? Because it’s part of their survival. They have to do that, and it’s the same with man. I think what it is is people trying to sort of distance themselves from who they are actually, who we are as human beings.' Delaine Le Bas is part of the U.K Romany community. In her works she explores many of the experiences of intolerance, misrepresentation, transitional displacement and homelessness that the community continues to experience. She uses multi media creating installations that include performance and music. Le Bas’ work was included in Paradise Lost, The First Roma Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2007; Refusing Exclusion, Prague Biennale 3, Prague 2007: Living Together, Museo De Arte Contemporeanea De Vigo, Spain, 2009 (curated by Emma Dexter and Xabier Arakistain). Her most recent exhibition was Forgeiners Everywhere, with Claire Fontaine, Karl Holmqvist and Damian Le Bas at Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv. She is included in Sixty: Innovators Shaping Our Creative Future by Thames & Hudson. Delaine Le Bas is represented by Galleria Sonia Rosso, Turin and Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin. |
| Dan Allum Romany Playwright Cambridge, 2009 | |
| 'It’s always interesting to understand something from, no matter how horrific, it’s interesting to understand something from another person’s point of view. We can all sort of judge and do what we want, but you don’t really learn anything unless we learn why they actually did it in the first place, you know. And as a writer I just need to find out as much as I can about human beings really. Good or bad. I don’t have a nostalgia for travelling. There was no privacy. Because, I come from a big family, nine. We lived in one caravan or a tent and you don’t have any private space, there isn’t any. And you don’t live inside because there’s not enough room. You basically go inside to eat and than get out really. So, there’s no private space around. Being A Traveller....It means that I am from a culture. It just really means to me that I am just from a culture of people. I don’t know, you know, I think we’re just all human beings. I mean being a Gypsy just means to me that I was brought up in a very specific way. I don’t know whether it means anything to me as a person. It just means that I was brought up in a very particular way with very particular set of rules and regulations, you know. Because Gypsies are just as tied down as anyone else. More so maybe. Because of the rules and the oppression; you have to do this, you have to do that, you know. It’s just a different set of rules. But you know the way I’ve been brought up, like all of us, you know, it’s in our blood, and it’s what we are and makes us who we are and we just have to accept that and live it really. I mean, obviously, for me it’s a; you know it’s a certain kind of thing about it, it’s in my blood and it drives me, you know. Some good, some bad.' |