17-19 Cockspur St, London SW1Y 5BL
Join us on 8 April to mark International Roma Day for Roma Routes, an evening of photography, film, and contemporary art exploring the journeys that shape Roma identity. Bringing together documentary work from a collaborative project in Tiszavasvári, Hungary, and artistic reflections by London-based Roma artist Robert Czibi, the exhibition traces connections between place, memory, and belonging. Through images, stories, and personal perspectives, Roma Routes invites audiences to reflect on how identity is shaped between the places we come from and the places we continue to become.
This exhibition brings together two intertwined narratives: the story of a segregated Roma community in Tiszavasvári, and that of an artist born in another Roma neighbourhood in the same region who has carried its memory across borders.
The first story is that of collaboration: stepping across internal borders between the countryside and the Hungarian capital, Budapest, to involve participants from the Roma neighbourhood of a small town in the North-East of Hungary in a collaborative writing project with local non-Roma residents through the publication of the periodical Duj Dzséne – Ketten – Two Together.
The second story is of the artist, Robert Czibi who crossed internal borders of identity and the physical borders of countries on many occasions before finding his expressive voice in the multiplicity of London’s lingua-culture. The simultaneity of identity as rootedness in Roma origins and identity as motion and interaction with our surroundings is what unites the two narratives that unfold in the images exhibited together.
The Road Ahead
Documentary and Photography Projects from Hungary - Film and photography
This photo exhibition was created in collaboration between photojournalist Márton Kállai, multiple-winner of the Hungarian Press Photo Competition, and the Tiszavasvári Roma Girls’ Youth Club, on the initiative of the KRE Linguistic Diversity and Social Participation research group at Károli Gáspár University in Budapest. Together, Roma and non-Roma participants from Tiszavasvári and Budapest write and publish the journal Duj Dzséne – Ketten – Two Together, creating a narrative of trust and belonging about Roma futures and the coexistence of Roma and non-Roma in Hungary. The documentary film Duj Dzséne – Ketten – Two Together: Stories of a collaborative journal in support of Roma social participation showcases stages from their journey together: how they forged a collaborative writing and research collective across the borders of identity that separate people living alongside each other.
There I Was Born, Here I Become
Contemporary Art
Robert Czibi’s artistic response unfolds as a parallel journey alongside the documentary and the photos. Although Robert’s works reflect his individual journey as a London-based Roma artist from Hungary, his journey explores the potentialities that open up when collectives or individuals persistently criss-cross and interrogate physical and narrative borders of identity. Through his works, he returns to the landscapes of his childhood not only to remember, but to understand how identity is formed between the place of birth and the place of becoming. Through images, he explores what it means to grow up in a Roma family, to leave it behind, and to continue carrying its imprint in his works. Together, his artworks create a dialogue between here and there, between collective memory and personal transformation.
Programme
- 18:30 - Film screening (25 minutes)
- 19:00 - Panel discussion - The Road Ahead – Documentary and Photography Projects from Hungary
- 19:30 - There I Was Born, Here I Become - Private view
- 21:00 - End of Event
We warmly invite audiences to join us for an evening of photography, film and contemporary art marking International Roma Day. Through documentary images, collaborative storytelling and personal artistic reflection, Roma Routes opens a space to engage with questions of identity, belonging, and the journeys that shape Roma lives across places and generations.
The exhibition offers an opportunity to encounter the voices and perspectives behind these projects and to reflect on how communities and individuals navigate the paths between heritage, memory and new beginnings.
Registration is open via Eventbrite.
The event is supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office – Hungary and organised by the Liszt Institute London