Spotlight: The Roma of Sintesti by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

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Featured Exhibit /July 29, 2009

'Satra'- The Roma of Sintesti
Photographs by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

Mia, a young Roma girl stands in front of a mermaid painted on the wall of a Roma home, 2004. Photo by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert.

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From 1990 through 2006 Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert photographed the Roma gypsy camp of Sintesti, Romania, documenting their lives and traditions.

His photographs encapsulate a period of dramatic change in the camp, as the inhabitants leave behind the dark period of the Communist years and embark on a fast track to material wealth and new opportunities.

The camp has changed from one of humble homes and traditional tents, horses and carts, to one where new wealth (made by dealing in scrap metal) is spent on all things material-- building fantasy homes and buying Porsche cars with cash.

"The mindset of the people does not move. The women are still denied an education and work opportunities. Traditional beliefs still sit uneasily with their newfound desire to be thought of as 'Westernised'."
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

Two Calderari Roma youths tend to their horses on the approach road to Sintesti Roma camp, near Bucharest, 1990. Photo by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert.

Sutton-Hibbert lives in Tokyo, Japan. His work has been commissioned by, or appeared in, magazines such as Time, National Geographic, Italian Geo, Le Figaro, The Guardian, and Greenpeace International, among others. In recent years, his work has taken him to over 40 countries, as far flung as Antarctica and Outer Mongolia. His personal and commissioned work, for which he has been the recipient of photojournalism awards, has been widely published and exhibited in Europe and USA. Examples of his work, and his contact details, can be found by visiting his main photographic website, where you can search for individual images or stories via his photographic archive.

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SocialDocumentary.net is a new website for photographers, NGOs, journalists, editors, and students to create and explore documentary websites investigating critical issues facing the world today. Recent exhibits have explored oil workers in the Niger River Delta, male sex workers in India, Central American immigrant women during their journey north, and Iraqi and Afghan refugees in Greece. Click here to view all of the exhibits.