Bear Pallasch

Through an art therapy lens, considering Romani people, The People Who Pass questions what it means to be a historical subject of trauma. What does it mean to be a subject whose possibilities are threatened, and perhaps even originally framed, through trauma? Drawing from critical geography and object-oriented cartography, The People Who Pass re-imagines the Roma diaspora as a geographical body utilizing social action body-mapping and bi-lateral protocols to locate sites of trauma and artistic activist expression. This corpus examines Romani trauma through the lens of Western psy-disciplines using hybrid Romani literary practices. The map reckons with trauma through a unique approach of considering the nexus of specters of hauntology that only a Call to Witness can demand.

For the map and its frame, I have incorporated traditional Romani crafts and materials such as leather work, painting, and cowhide for the map, and beading, tapestry, and embroidery using silk and challis fabric, and charms for its fabric collaged frame. How we read things changes throughout time. For the Roma, how we read these materials and this cartographic art form is defined by our memory and heritage and the geopolitical project of statecraft. We associate maps with movement and rest, dwelling and hapticity, emotions and narration. Maps are not just something to read; Maps are something to feel. They offer an access point to explore a pursuit of signs in linguistic deterritorialization and a reclamation of identity that we see echoed in the meaning-making processes of psychotherapeutic practices.