"Thanks to her 'dissident' status, she was granted cultural asylum" : The Figure of Romani Woman Artist in the Work of Kiba Lumberg
: Parente-Čapková Viola
: French Lorely, Hertrampf Marina Ortrud M.
: München
: 2023
: Approaches to a “new" World Literature Romani Literature(s) as (re-)writing and self-empowerment
: Ästhetik(en) der Roma – Selbst- und Fremdrepräsentatione
: 4
: 225
: 247
: 23
: 978-3-95477-157-8
: 978-3-96091-609-3
: 2747-4518
DOI: https://doi.org/10.23780/9783960916093(external)
: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/85552(external)
The figure of the (woman) artist is a central element in the literary works of the Finnish Romani writer, artist, and activist Kiba Lumberg (*1956), including one of her comic books. Lumberg’s take on the subject is pronouncedly autobiographical, highlighting the important role of the artist’s gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and other aspects of her identity, although constantly problematizing and ironizing that identity. This essay begins with looking at the Memesa trilogy, but then concentrates on Lumberg’s last novel, Irtiottoxxx (2018, Breakxxx), which has thus far been largely ignored by the Finnish literary establishment. In Irtiottoxxx, which takes place in Italy, the lesbian “half-Romani” artist Memesa (the protagonist of Lumberg’s earlier novels) is no longer the first-person narrator, but only a narrated figure in the background. However, with the help of the “Memesa narrative” embedded in the discussion on artists’ rights and their position in society in general, Lumberg continues to discuss the role of the artist in the context of the—allegedly liberal and generous—Finnish cultural institutions and the art market. Lumberg’s critical view of the position of the artist— namely the aging woman artist—within the cultural institutions and in society in general is analysed with the help of contextual, multi-layered intersectional analysis of her last novel. There, the motif of art as salvation culminates in a kind of a feminist utopia.