Spoken Word Performances

These performances demonstrate the continued oral traditions of Gypsies and Travellers to share stories of culture and other life experiences. They use the project’s oral history data and are performed by Leon Cascalini who says:

I am of Romani, Sinti blood line. I spent the first 20 years of my life on the road living wild in Nature with my community. At the age of 20 I was imprisoned for a serious offence I had committed. 10 years into the prison sentence I met the Artist/lecturer Peter Martin, he taught an Art class in prison. That meeting changed my life...thanks to Peter I was initiated into the world of form, colour and texture…..I discovered a language beyond words….an inner landscape of the imagination. 

Art and Culture to me today seems cerebrally isolated, possibly illustrating our loss of meaning,purpose… Soul. Art for me is a process, a journeying, a rite of passage to explore and reconnect my inner landscapes….to the outer landscapes….that is, to re-establish a connection to my inner nature and Mother Nature…..this gives me meaning,nourishment @ sustenance. The object, art piece is the embers left from what you could call the shamanic, healing journey. More than ever before I sense that we collectively need to find and re-establish our Souls to the Soul of Our planet, Our Great mother who has always sustained and nourished us as a human family.