Stitching a Roma archive: Delaine Le Bas's We Have a History

Shearer, Allison Lee Rhiannon

Publication

Stitching a Roma archive: Delaine Le Bas's We Have a History

Shearer, Allison Lee Rhiannon

Date

2024-05-06

Abstract

British Romani artist Delaine Le Bas (b. 1965, United Kingdom) confronts anti-Roma prejudices and stereotypes in her multidisciplinary practice spanning assemblage to performance. This thesis focuses on the artist’s 2005 work We Have A History, originally made for the Hampshire County Cultural Trust’s exhibition The Living Album Project- Hampshire’s Gypsy Heritage. I analyze the ways Le Bas utilizes textiles, text, family portraits, and contested visual representations of the Roma to challenge the false notion of the Roma as a people without a history. I argue that We Have A History constructs a counter-model of memory, distinct from the larger historic repositories that do not justly represent the lived experiences of the Roma people. This thesis examines how Le Bas tells a Roma history from the place and scale of her individual family and, in so doing, creates a renewed context for seeing and recognizing British Romani identity.