Week 33 - 2015
© Linda Bournane Engelberth, From the series "You can call me a gypsie if you want to"
Call me a gypsie
The documentary photographer Linda Bournane Engelberth has followed the Roma in Norway and Romania through her documentary project «You can call me a gypsie if you want to».
In Norway, she has photographed the Roma as they beg on the streets, collect plastic bottles to recycle, and sell found clothing. Many are also driven to pickpocketing. Life is hard on the streets of Oslo. The majority of the Roma people longs for and dreams of the months they have at home with their families in Romania, nurturing traditions that have lasted for centuries.
Linda Bournane Engelberth has also followed them to the small villages of Tetila and Dragoin, Romania, where they have lived for generations. Due to a lack of education, poverty and unemployment in Romania, these Roma rely on Norwegian money for their livelihood back in the villages. But their happiness at home only lasts as long as the money they have brought back from Norway. And so the cycle continues.
Linda belongs to the new generation of documentary photographers that work in depth with long-term projects, willing to understand and communicate today's society through photography. She is the festival exhibitor of the Photography Day 2015.