Presentation to 'Romaphobia in Europe' research group, Insitute for Diplomacy and International Governance (IDIG)

Description of Activity

Title of talk: ‘A kind of thinking’ – a dialogue between art, activism and academia in Romani studies.

Description: This talk is to look at what academia can offer in understanding and challenging how images of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (‘GRT’) people are (ab)used in public spaces. New interest in the art and activism produced by GRT people shows how images can stimulate critical thinking that subverts, challenges and parodies prevalent notions of European ‘belonging’. So, what can academia contribute? Here I look at what visual studies can offer and the challenges to building a visual methodology/analysis that embeds a commitment to social justice and dialogue between academia and artistic thinking and production. This commitment to dialogue through art echoes cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s interest in the ways that Black British art created certain ‘moments’ (2006: 3 ). Hall said that in these art pieces, ‘enormously profound ideas and indeed concepts are at work, that art is a kind of thinking also; it’s a way of feeling and a way of looking, but it’s also a kind of thinking’ (Hall in Dibb and Jaggi 2009).

Period	17 Nov 2022
Held at	Loughborough University, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	International