Icons of the Peripheral

Czarná Góra, Krakow, Banská Bystrica 2014 /PL,SK/

Icons of the peripherals

Czarna Gora, Krakow, Banská Bystrica 2014 / PL, SK /

For the work Icons of the Peripheral (2014), I created life-size face-in-the hole boards which represented Roma people in their home setting. The photos were taken in the Roma settlement in Czarna Gora, Poland. I installed these photo-objects in main squares of various towns and cities. In this project, I worked with the visual archetype of Roma and presented it as a cut out, the familiar object used as a fairground attraction, whereby the Roma becomes a pop icon. With these objects, I recreated a fairground setting in which people could “become a Roma” for the moment the picture is taken. My aim was to point out that we have no power over the circumstances of our life into which we have been born, and ask the viewer: would you like to be Roma?