Shifting visibilities: the social implications of a Roma aesthetic

ABSTRACT

This paper is a personal reflection by a Roma artist upon the mutual influence of Roma social relations and Roma visual culture. Strategies of art making are considered via analyses of contemporary Roma art works. It is suggested that historic marginalisation and continuing discrimination have determined the contingent nature of the Roma aesthetic resulting in keen facilities for adaptation and obscured visibility. Roma artefacts are shown to employ these resistant characteristics of Roma visuality to convey social, cultural, artistic and political agency via visual and performative means. The conclusion calls for a reconceptualisation of Roma visibilities so that we as Roma might forge new political unities and new forms of politics to more effectively challenge embedded Romaphobia.

KEYWORDS:

• Gypsy
• Roma
• Traveller
• art
• aesthetics
• visibility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See the La voix des Rroms website. Accessed 7 February 2017. http://www.lavoixdesrroms.org/insurrection/.See ‘Flashmob Esmeralda’ on youtube. Accessed 7 February 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImjYdG_Z9Tw.

2. This first screening was delivered as part of an event at INIVA in London titled PRISaC: Performing Romani Identities, Strategy and Critique. See their vimeo webpage. Accessed 7 February 2017. https://vimeo.com/173753415.