Engaged in artistic practices we have termed “vernacular,” we focus specifically on creating sound and visual works using an anthropological approach that aims to collaboratively develop all kinds of artistic projects with the people involved, guided by shared aspirations and collective goals.
We have each been working for many years, in various contexts, on documentary films, sound art, and experimental films, sometimes in connection with our research in anthropology (film anthropology or linguistic anthropology). For most of us, ongoing and in-depth work with Traveler or Romani families (in France, Bulgaria, and Romania) has been continuing for decades in various forms.
Building on these diverse practices, we have undertaken a collective project centered on the issue of Romani archives: sound and visual archives in their current form.
Fragments of images, sound recordings, photographs, Super 8 or VHS films, unnamed and undated documents, home movies, or more recently videos created on cell phones and posted on social media, etc., these diverse film and sound materials lead us to extend the vernacular gestures of people who had no always intention of making art, yet who nonetheless offer entirely innovative forms.
Initiated by Cécile Canut’s Roma Dikhila project, supported by the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), and centered on Romani vernacular practices that facilitate the circulation of audio and visual archives, this project aims to highlight and showcase the politics of subjectivation that result from these actions. It has been joined by the work of Jonathan Larcher and Erell Latimier on the archives of Matéo Maximoff and gives rise to film performances, screenings, workshops, debates, exhibitions, and more. We are actually working with Roma artists, activists, researchers or writters, like Stefka Stefanova Nikolova (BG), Nouka Maximoff (France), Damian Le Bas (UK), Delaine Le Bas (UK), Ognian Issaev (BG), William Acker (France), Natalya Tsekova (BG), Stefka Nikolaeva (BG), Toby Gorniak MBE (UK), Sami Mustapha (Rolling Film Festival), Driton Berisha (Amaro Than), and we are expecting more Roma artists involved in these perspectives.
The first event of this collective project will take place in 2026 November 20-22 in Brussels, in partnership with the Théâtre de la Parole and the Théâtre Médeber.