Roma in Rome

Nihad Nino Pušija

In his photo reportage, the Bosnian Nihad Nino Pušija from Sarajevo offers a new realistic view of the ethnic minority he belongs to, the Roma. While other photographers generally focus on the Roma’s impoverishment and hardship, and above all on their supposed differentness, Pušija’s pressing concern is to liberate the Roma’s self-image from definition by others, from the view of others. Some media strategies play with classic clichés of the Roma, and some with the public’s fears: the act of reappropriating the Roma’s self-image questions all of them. Roma é Roma (Roma in Rome) documents the life of Roma in encampments in the city of Rome over the course of a decade. Pušija first portrayed the living conditions there in 2002. In 2011 he created the Gladiatorenbilder (Gladiator Pictures), photos of young Roma in oversized gladiator costumes. Although their eyes are unflinching and show a readiness to fight, their vulnerability and lack of stability are discernible under the warlike costumes. In 2012 Pušija returned to Italy to document how the encampments had developed in the meantime with the medium of the photo-novella.