Once We Were Birds – Roma in Hungary consists of 12 video conversations with Hungarian Roma, from both the city of Budapest and the rural North-East of Hungary as well as an archive of photographs, made both on film and digitally.
Tina & Annemarie, whose main concerns are the human condition, human rights and the fight against poverty, prejudice and discrimination make positive images that challenge the stereotypical view.
Although the political and economic transition from Communism has been difficult for Hungary overall (today approximately 30% of the population lives below the official poverty line), the worst affected are, by far, are the Roma minority.
As elsewhere in Eastern Europe, anti-Roma prejudice is widespread, and there is broad segregation and deprivation. The Roma are consigned to the 8th District in Budapest or teleps (settlements) at the periphery of villages in the countryside – where the tarmac ends the telep begins.
Roma are generally absent from political, academic, commercial, and social life, and discrimination and violence towards the Roma is pervasive and long-standing.
www.simply-solar.co.uk
www.oncewewerebirds.blogspot.com
Tina Carr & Annemarie Schöne
Tina (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1950) studied photography at Harrow College of Art. Annemarie (Munich, 1947) graduated from Munich Academy of Fine Art 1973, and was awarded a Postgraduate Diploma by Saddler’s Wells Stage Design Course in 1974.
Tina and Annemarie are lens based artists who work collaboratively on documentary, research based multimedia projects often in partnership with voluntary organisations and community groups. They have exhibited widely at the National Portrait Gallery and the Photographer’s Gallery London, Ffotogallery Cardiff, the Westphälisches Industrie Museum Dortmund, János Balázs Gallery, Roma Parliament, Budapest.
Two monographs of their work have been published – Pigs and Ingots, Ylolfa 1993 and Coalfaces, Parthian 2008.