Roma have been part of Czechoslovak and Czech society for centuries. Although they are often told that the Czech Republic is not their country, most of them were born there and consider the country their home. They feel like Roma, but also as Czechs at the same time.

The Czech artist Lukáš Houdek (* 1984) would like to draw attention to this situation with the photographic series »Amare«. An exhibition of the series, which was hung as part of the Czech-German Culture Days at the Palitzschhof location of the Dresden Youth Art School, could not be opened in the presence of the artist due to the corona pandemic and could only be shown for a short period of time.

In the live interview via Zoom, we bring the photographs into digital space and talk to Lukáš Houdek about his artistic engagement with the topic of anti-Romanism and anti-Ciganism, which is widespread in both the Czech and German-speaking cultures.

Houdek studied Romistics at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague. He started taking photos in 2005 when he tried to record the situation of the Roma in various places in the Czech Republic and abroad, but later also the lives of members of the Dom caste in northern India who are considered contemporaries of the Roma. Today he works for the project “HateFree Culture”, which is committed to a racism-free society and publishes literature by Sinti and Roma writers.