Roma Art- Is there such a thing?Art for Social Justice

ByKatalin Gyokeny MFA, MSEd, MA

Artistically speaking

• art art washes away from the soul the dust washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. of everyday life.

• Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso

Roma Art – Is there such a thing?

• What is Roma art? • Can we call it Roma art just because it is created by people of Roma

origin?• Is there male art and female art then too, because various genders created

it?• Is there Chicano art, Jewish art, African American art too?• Does it matter who created the artwork?• Art is Universal and timeless.• Art Is therapy

Art increases well being• Art can be used as classroom and school

intervention, making sure peer interaction is safe for all.

• Bullying by peers, racial and ethnic, discriminatory language, social ostracizing are all damaging to the self esteem of the Roma youth. It hinders their social-emotional and cognitive growth.

Nature/Nurture• All young people have the right to grow up in a safe,

healthy, nurturing environment in which they can achieve their potential.

• Expressive and creative activities enable people to become more aware of their emotions, and help them to express themselves in a nonverbal manner, using art.

• Creating art is freeing and empowering for all. • Using creative activities unlocks hidden fears, and

makes way for dealing with them. • Using art in group settings is even more powerful, as

youth can share, communicate, socialize and feel less alone with their problem.

Fitting in• When young people don’t fit into the cultural norms of the society,

school can become a frightening place where they do not feel emotionally safe and can not learn effectively.

• School curriculum does not include lesson plans that would address the life and experience of Roma youth, who are frequently targets to bullying and teasing by peers.

• Ethnic majority and minority should participate in exploring their identity, their fears of social stigma, their social conformity, or confusion.

• Exploration of what is “normal” and what seems not to be should be explored through creative visual arts exercises. Good results can be achieved through art making followed by discussion.

Who can benefit• Students, teachers and staff.• Teachers and staff should explore empathic listening, role playing, and art

making, through which they can eventually understand and help their Roma students.

• All children need curricular mirrors to see them selves reflected and thus feel safe in being themselves. They also need curricular windows to feel safe with the differences of others

Steps toward achieving this end:

• Education in origin and history of the Roma people, both for ethnic majority and minority

• Installing positive role models• Extinction of perpetuation of Romany stereotype

Visiting Jarovnice Eastern Slovakia

Working together Jan Sajko with his students

Motherhood

Group Art / learning the history

Family

Music

As Ambassador of Cornell University Eastern European Studies program of Know The New Europe - Visiting Poland 2011

Special School in Hnusta, SK. Many Romany students are automatically placed in special schools where their curriculum is

watered down and they have no further opportunities in life.

Romany Special ed. School in Rimavska Sobota,Slovakia

Church of cheese

I started the lesson by capturing the students attention by declaring: “The Roma people don’t have a church because they ate it.”

What? The children’s faces gleamed in disbelieve and expecting some fun story to emerge.

Yes, I continued. The Caucasians built their church of cheese and the Roma, using stones. The Caucasians then tricked the gullible Roma people, by offering them their cheese church in exchange for their stone one. The Caucasians were also going to pay extra money for the stone church. The Roma people agreed to this deal. However the Caucasians failed to live up to their promise and never payed the extra money. The Romany people where poor and hungry, so they ate their church.

And that’s why the Roma people do not have a church.

At this point the students are laughing in amusement.

I distributed chunks of cheese and sculpting tools to them, as the next step.

We proceeded to carve churches out of cheese.

Some students ate some of it too.

Friendship Mandala

Festival of Racial and Ethnic tolerance, Lucenec Slovakia

Making a paper mache dancer

Painting the dancer

So called Roma Art1.Balazs Balogh Andras, 2.Dilinko Gabor, 3.C Kis.Jozsef,4. Bada Marta

1.Katalin Gyokeny, 2. Eva Gyurak Smitt, 3. Joe Machine