Dikchaw daj, dikchaw doj
collage, wool, oil on canvas, 3 h x 1.65 w, 2023
The collage explores the histories, memories and various occupations of a number of Roma, Sinti and 'Camminanti' communities in Italy, from those of ancient settlement, such as the Abruzzi and Molise Roma, present in Italy since the 15th century and arriving from Greece and Albania, to the Khorakhana (Muslim) and Kanjarja (Orthodox) Roma, who arrived after the war in Yugoslavia, or the 'Camminanti' who reside mainly in Noto in Sicily.
Nomadism, asociality and re-education become the three cornerstones around which the public discourse in Italy on the so-called 'gypsy problem' revolves with a view to its final resolution.
The title Dikchaw daj, dikchaw doj (I look here, I look there) takes its cue from a poem by Papusza, (1908-1987), a Polish Roma woman, who describes the fate of her nation, expressing her habits and yearnings, so the collage, through painting, photos and writing, recounts the multi-layered nature of identities and the notion of intersectional discrimination in which these identities are inseparable from each other. The collage aims to urgently challenge misunderstandings and stereotypes and at the same time give an insight into immigrations in Italy, in order to share reflections and be involved in social change, creating new narratives and above all radically rethink the way we live together on this planet.
The Structure of Antigypsyism
collage, wool, oil on canvas, 3 h x 1.65 w, 2022
In this collage, multimedia and multi-materiality represents the complex and multifaceted character of anti-Gypsyism, which manifests itself in the pejorative stereotypes projected onto European Roma communities.
This collage does not attempt to provide a new explanation of the historical roots of anti-Gypsyism. Rather, it has a strong common thread that allows us to highlight the resilience of Romani populations throughout history.
Cosa vuol dire essere Romnia?!
Performance
Villa Romana, Florence, 2022
Through poetry and writing, the performance aims to raise awareness and valorise the role and multiple identities of Roma women. The use of the thread, refers to the idea of how society 'sews' prejudices and imagined identities onto those who are perceived as 'other', but also how our stories intertwine as a thread of what is a hidden past and an existence of resistance, survival and resilience.
Cosa vuol dire essere Romnia?!
Lecture performance
Polo Museale S.Spirito, Lanciano, 2022
Il Manifesto delle Romnia
Oil colours and markers on silk, black wool, 120x70cm, 2022
Our body is not a biological datum, but an inscription field of socio-cultural codes
Warriors of the post-patriarchy
We are a multiple diversification of this subjectivity... ROMNIA...
We cannot bear silence
We are here, queer, women, mothers, open, fluid, virtual
ready to be seen with our own true biographies and identities
Sullo spigolo dei silenzi
series of 60 pieces - photos on silk ,120x140cm each, 2017 on going
The series Sullo spigolo dei silenzi "On the Edge of Silences" tells how race, ethnicity, as well as gender are socially constructed categories, imagined and invented by the society. The omnipotence of digital media and social networks commodifies every body and at the same time intensifies structural differences and inequalities through access to the technologies that really drive the market.
Collecting the stories of queers, of multiple and indefinite identities who live their sexuality as a defect or as a psychological problem dictated by public opinion, I took pictures of parts of their bodies making them indefinite, and then printed on a semi-transparent silk from which you can see both sides and then sew them together as a metaphor for the violence and exclusion dictated by society against those who are perceived as "other".
Photo by: Jana Kießer
Social Atmosphere
collage, painting 70x50cm, 2022
10 years after the Roma and Sinti memorial in Berlin, the collage covers various political and social issues of recent years. From the pandemic, to the various forms of racism, as well as the various protests that have marked an important change; from the explotation of refuges and Italian nomad camps to the figure of the Roma woman who wants to be recognised in her true biography.
The collage leaves open the reflection of a past, a present and an uncertain future.
Roma Camps in Italy - the architectural expression of state racism
Collage, photos, oil paint, 60x42cm, 2022
The camp is the place where those perceived as different are confined, a technology of power and at the same time a device of governance. The 'nowhere', the 'non-place', where those who are considered "humanities of excessis" are relegated. The camp is the place where subjects, having lost their individuality, harnessed to massifying bureaucratic categories, redefine themselves on the basis of these same practices and categories. In this collage I have collected photos of different nomad camps from various Italian online newspapers that use racist articles to illustrate the degradation of people living in extreme social marginalisation.
Foto by: Jana Kießer
Romnjadigitalised
Collage, oil painting, 47x57cm, 2022
The collage explores issues of Roma identity and feminility and the politics and poetics of its visual representation. Creating through intervention with paint, dense images that almost metaphorically follow the friction and conflicting realities of ideas related to being an artist, Roma and woman in search of a way to exist in between, to be multiple, to remain irreducible.
Cosa vuol dire essere Romnia?!
oil on canvas, wool, 120x140cm , 2022
Part of a series that through the use of different media explores the possible interpretations, political identities and visibility of the bodies of real and imagined Roma women.
Über Land Gehen
oil on canvas, 130 x 153cm, 2022
The painting depicts faceless bodies moving in a dreamy landscape on a boat in search of somewhere to go.
Dedicated to those lost on the Mediterranean route.
The Drowned World
Installation - Performance, various materials
Bregenz, 2019
Borrowing the title from J. G. Ballard's apocalyptic novels from 1962, the performance "The Drowned Word" symbolically activates a drinking trough for cows connecting it to the ambiguous meaning of ‘well poisoning’, an age-old form of terror as well as a pretext to falsely blame foreigners and ethnic minorities.
The performance took place shortly after the European elections at the height of Matteo Salvini's racist campaign against immigrants.
A body floats in black putrid water–– black from hatred, indifference and contempt.
Fragilità Ermetica
Installation – Performance
bubble wrap, wood, mirrors, honey
Spazio Cut, Milan, 2018
Fragilità Ermetica (Hermetic Fragility) is a dreamlike, dreamy, alienating reality, that distances us from all previous convictions and leaves us in complete silence, doubt. The current policies and rhetoric of exclusion, refoulement and identification for Roma, migrants and asylum seekers unfortunately remind us that the stakes are not only military but also biological.
Our identity has taken on a thousand nuances and our body, enclosed and sealed in a space, as in a cocoon, awaits a transformation, a change.
Performance - Installation
San Carpoforo, Milano , 2017
The term Mnemosyne comes from the Greek and means remembrance, memory.
In this performance I am wrapped in bubble wrap, which packs and protects me at the same time. The mask I wear in a theatrical way hides me from a thousand or no identities and in the meantime a video projecting molecules and blood cells is projected onto my body.
As people become part of the performance, I invite them to wear a mask that cheers me up to feel part of a social theatrical fake.