iolanda andrade: October 2013

Monday, 28 October 2013

The "touch and go" type of students ... -The 21st and 28th of October 2013

I have been seeing some of my former students in a sort of "touch and go" type of teaching approach and although we don't spend more than a full morning in class it has been rather important for me to find out how well they have been doing professional and personally since they left the training academy for good.

I will be "tied" to them forever and must confess to have been touched by the fact that for many the feeling is reciprocate.

Carichas, Duarte, Gaio, Isabel, João and Miguel (from left to right).

The pink street in Cais do Sodré area, Lisbon - The 26th of October 2013

The once sordid lower down town area of the harbour, Cais do Sodré, known for having been a haven for pimps, women of various "virtues" and mostly sailors who came ashore to enjoy a couple of hours in the bars lining its streets and which later became a rather "posh" entertainment area has now been "refurbished" thanks to the creativity of an architect, who decided to have its (I presume now) pedestrian street painted in a vibrant pink.

Whether the colour will have an impact on what goes on there at night I don't know, but the truth is it does look good and definitely different in the day light.

I wish they just painted every street in any existing vibrant colour ... or (why not) the colours of the rainbow and maybe the actual crisis wouldn't look so grim ...

Sunday, 27 October 2013

Lungo Drom (Romani Lives) in the Black Pavilion of Museu da Cidade, Lisbon - The 27th of October 2013

Visiting the Lisbon City Museum is interesting enough on any given day be it for the permanent exhibition or the building which houses it but more so this weekend so as to get immersed in the Romani Lives' temporary exhibition being held there.

I must confess that my favourite book as a young girl was "An adventure among Gipsies", whose story I don't recall any more but which definitely allowed me then to "experience" the spirit of freedom I felt I would never be allowed to have, naturally unaware of what they as a community had had to go through and to which extent they had been ostracised.

It wouldn't be much later, whilst reading a book on the second World War, that I started getting a different perspective from the one I had had in my rather "naive" approach as a nine year old child, though the curiosity has always been lingering on and whenever there's some sort of venue related to them I try not to disregard my almost instinct willingness to attend it.

Exterior of the Black Pavilion (left). "Lungo Drom" by Rui A. Pereira (2013) marking the entrance to the exhibition.

The exhibition comprises a number of old photos and documentation that provide a fairly interesting historical vision of the presence of gipsies in Iberia since the the fifteenth century through to nowadays.

Royal pragmatic addressed to the gipsies signed by the Catholic King in 1499 and which has been considered by many the beginning of a ferocious persecution.

Gipsy party advertisement -1781 (left). Gipsy Dances -Eighteenth century (right).

Group of gipsies, Andalusia - 1862 - probably the first picture taken of gipsies (left). Two gipsy women with a child outside Porta Real market - 1897 (right).

Portrait of Chorrojumo - 1900 (left). Portrait of the Sacromonte gipsy Anica Antonia, la cambiadora - 1900 (right).

Guadalcanal cattle fair scene, Sevilla - 1920 (left). Gipsy camp during the Guadalcanal cattle fair, Sevilla - 1920 (right).

Photos taken by Jacques Léonard - 1960

Gipsies being expelled from el Pais Basco

Photos taken in 1960

Series of photographs taken by the Portuguese photographer Eduardo Gageiro in Alentejo to the gipsy community - 1980

In 1978 the gipsies were finally recognised as citizens in Spain being officially recognised as having the same rights as any Spanish citizen and thus being allowed to attend school.