Venice / 2007 / Tour / Roma Pavilion

07 of 25

Kiba Lumberg

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Death on the trotting-track. 1995
Gouache, 62 x 88 cm

"Well, where to begin..."
A long journey of running and jogging along a thorny path, writes Kiba Lumberg herself. The future artist, author and scriptwriter was born in the 1950s into a Romani family of nine in the small town of Lappeenranta in Southeastern Finland.

Kiba is said to have been a withdrawn, even defiant child, and consequently considered at times difficult. The colourful life in the Roma community fascinated, but also oppressed her. According to Kiba she grew to know the feeling of otherness already as a child, otherness in relation to the non-Roma majority, but also otherness in relation to her own people. She rebelled because she was unable to accept all the traditional customs of her community.When Kiba was thirteen, she took her few belongings and entered an orphanage. Her family came to take her back, but the young girl kept her head.

Kiba has settled her relationship with her own ethnic framework and personal history. She continues to draw on its culture, both for her own existence and also her art - observing life and its phenomena from both within and without. She does not want to consider herself a Finn; she would much rather like to be a citizen of the world.

Esko Nummelin

Print version
All texts and biographies

© Photo above: Ritva Bäckman
Courtesy: Organizer
Photos right above: Haupt & Binder

* 1956 Lappeenranta, Finland. Lives in Helsinki, Finland.

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Venice / 2007 / Tour / Roma Pavilion