MARCO CARLONE

Unwritten travellers

A long term project that explores the stereotypes about the Roma population.

It deals with the consolidated narration that reduces the Roma to some fixed categories. Positive or negative stereotypes, romanticised or discriminatory: the Roma are free, thoughtless, anti-capitalist, talented in music, but also dirty, thieves, vagrants, slackers.

But then, one step closer: the Roma tell their stories, give their views on stereotypes. When their voice takes over the scene, illuminating some corner of their daily life, the picture becomes immediately more complex, articulated and reveals new colours. Unwritten travellers does not want to demolish the dominant narratives, it does not aim to overturn the perspective, but rather to add nuances to this picture, to arouse doubt.

The zoom focuses on five Roma places par excellence, each with its own characteristics but with a single powerful point in common: they all belong to the periphery of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, lands that are commonly considered the places of origin of the Roma.

These five places have been chosen because they exhibit, in their simple complexity, the cracks of that gloomy vision that the word "Roma" usually evokes:

• Šuto Orizari, North Macedonia. In “Shoot-ka”, as the municipality is called in Skopje, Romanì has been adopted as official language. It is the only municipality in Europe with this peculiarity.
• Soroca, Moldova. It is nicknamed the "European Roma Capital" and is known for its extravagant residences;
• Shkozë, Albania. It is a neighbourhood in Tirana built to move an entire Roma community that used to live in a dangerous area on the banks of a river
• Stolipinovo, Bulgaria. It is a district of Plovdiv known as "The largest Roma ghetto in the Balkans";
• Alsószentmárton, Hungary. It is the settlement with the highest percentage of Roma in Hungary.

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