Photographing Travellers: Eva Sajovic

Until the 20th March, 198 gallery is presenting an exhibition that is supported by so many workshops and seminars, that the whole show functions as a long-running performance.

Eva Sajovic is a photographer and illustrator whose links with the Traveller community underpin the present exhibition: ‘Be-Longing: Travellers Stories, Traveller’s Lives’.

198 is a curiously shaped space, very welcoming, in which Eva’s photographs are arranged in clusters or homogenous rows to fit the location. You might not notice the different arrangements, however, as you are taken in by the stories of the people you’re looking at. Many of the photos lack the high contrast and powerful graphic quality that much documentary photography has used to punch its way into our psyches. The Traveller photos here have the impact of the invisible lives of their subjects. They make their mark by revealing alien worlds slowly and gently. Ghostly smoke screens, lace-filled mantelpieces and portable homes in low saturation report on the lives of Travellers in the UK and Slovenia. The images are accompanied by texts that add to the stories in each series. Displaying the writing next to the images is a practice that many curators seem to frown upon in white cube spaces (not to add distractions to the visuals) but the system makes the ideas more accessible and immediate. The artist intends for us to empathise with the subjects, and the warmth of the user-friendly display removes any coldness the camera has mediated.

Check out the events at the gallery in the coming weeks to meet the artist and get a chance to discuss prejudice and marginalisation towards the Roma.

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