Marion Colard on co-creating art with the youth of Pata-Rât.
The PATA serie (2023) is made from artistic workshops carried out in co-creation with “Roma**” children from the Coastei community who live in Pata-Rât. Pata-rât is a slum located in Cluj (Romania) where hundreds of Roma families have been forcibly evicted for generations. Between March and April 2023, I’ve worked with about fifteen children aged between 6 and 13 to create new ways of representing Roma children through visual creations.
Credit: Marion Colard
Portraits staged by the children themselves, inspired by pictures from the history of photography.
“Sara says she likes books, to improve her vocabulary. She has four books at home and in one of them, the story is about a giant and a little girl. She says if she would ever write a book herself, it would be about mathematics. She says that sometimes, she puts makeup on: blush, lipstick and mascara. Her aunt taught her.”
You won’t see the slums, poverty, dirt and dump.
You won’t see despair and dust.
You won’t see weariness and anger.
All these things exist, in Pata-rât and probably already in your imagination.
You will then see a raw and intense poetry, a creative force.
You will see these children reclaiming their images, their faces, their representations.
You will see their likes and dislikes, their locations and their colors.
All these things also exist, in Pata-rât and I hope now, in your imagination.
Titu, Romania 2023
Credit: Marion Colard
Portait of A., Romania 2022
“He says he loves the moon and the smoke that comes out of the house. He hates wild pigs and French clowns that eats raw onions.”
Credit: Marion Colard
Through co-creation workshops, I try to sublimate the stories of people designated as “on the margins of society”. I seek to bring out the beauty and strength of those who are forced to build themselves apart. The systemic discrimination, called “antiziganism” faced by Roma communities is so tenacious that it seems to prevent any other form of narrative. Even if you have never met one before, if I tell you “Roma child living in a slum”, an image comes to your mind. My wish is to tell another story and create, with the people concerned, other images. Behind every word, every stereotype, is a person with their own story, dreams and complex questions that form and grow beyond the living conditions imposed by systemic discrimination.
During the workshops, different techniques were proposed such as monotype, painting, writing or photography. We expressed what was important for them in their environment, what they liked and didn’t like in their neighbourhood. With photography and colour paint we reinterpreted the art of portrait, embracing self-representation.
** The term “Roma” is used in this article as a generic term and does not cover the diversity of communities on the field.
Marion Colard is a self-taught visual artist, and has been working with Roma communities for eight years.