Research Papers

The term ‘Gypsy’ is moving from a group label to a term indicating alternative identities and (radical) social change, including the creation of formal and informal networks that bring together a variety of people from artists to social workers and community workers/agitators. This paper considers major art networks in Berlin, Finland and the CoBrA art collective based in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam with particular reference to the ‘Gypsy Camp’ design by CoBrA and the ‘Gypsy Revolution’ project by Delaine and Damien Le Bas. These examples offer alternative social spaces for debates around Gypsy groups, inequality and social inclusion, providing a political platform to display societal problems and solutions in an interactive, interesting, (artistic), people-friendly manner. The paper argues that reclaiming the term ‘Gypsy’ can create an alternative framework for thinking through inequality and the ‘self’ that is not bound by a certain ethnic or cultural group, but one that recognises interactions with family, community, art, alongside economic and political contexts as intrinsic to fighting inequality and racism.