Delaine Le Bas - Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding

7 Jun-13 Oct 2024

Overview

A co-commission between Tramway and Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art 

Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding is an exhibition of work by artist Delaine Le Bas (b. 1965) presented within an expansive and layered installation. Delaine’s objects, environments, textiles, costumes and performances exist at the intersection of the personal and the political, aligning their experiences as a Romani person with perspectives on land, movement, gender, and discrimination.  

Across the exhibition, Delaine evokes forms of social and psychological commentary through the recurrent use of texts, the reactivation of personal and archival ephemera, and symbols from classical mythology and popular culture. The installations are populated by a cast of extraordinary figures such as goddesses, visionaries and witches, applying a feminist lens to narratives of both emancipation and domination. 

Tramway was previously the Glasgow site of To Gypsyland (2013), a travelling research project by Delaine and collaborator Barby Asante that explored Romani, Gypsy and Traveller presence in cities across the UK. In the intertwining of elements from past projects with new figures and narratives, Delainia reflects the ongoing address in the work of the mythologisation and demonisation of Romani, Gypsy and Traveller peoples in the UK and Europe. These concerns are amplified within present-day contexts of housing crisis, border control, forced displacement and environmental breakdown. Delaine’s work activates and reclaims space for new rituals and imaginaries of resistance against historical and contemporary environments of hostility.  

Artists