Waiting for a miracle

 

While cleaning up my old school supplies, I came across this old photo of my 1st Communion in 1968. On this photo was Swanna, my friend in the first grade of the elementary school in Breugel (Netherlands). Swanna was a Sinti girl, a traveler. Our friendship was not much appreceated by our parents: Swanna’s world, her life, was so different from my world. The distance was too big at that time, our friendship was not ment to be and we lost sight of each other.

 

 

 

 

Swanna

This old photo was the start of my search for Swanna. When I found her, she turned out to live in a normal house. Totally against her will. After her husband died, she had to move out of her mobile home. The place had to be cleared. She was very unhappy in her house of stone. She was promised a new place with a new mobile home, but she was waiting for years now – while nothing happened. The story of Swanna was the start of the project Waiting for a miracle, about Dutch travelers who want to live in a mobile home.

 

Extinction policy

As Swanna, there are over 3000 traveler families waiting for a place to live in their own mobile home. Young travelers who live at their parents’ for years. Sometimes with a complete family of their own on a few square meters in their parents’ mobile home, or in a small, illegally placed caravan on their families premises. Waiting for a place of their own that never comes. This is the result of the so called extinction policy, intended to slowly eliminate all caravan sites for travelers. No new sites were created and sites that became vacant due to deaths or relocations were cleared. This policy has now been banned and the culture of travelers has been classified as intangible cultural heritage. But nothing has changed yet. So they keep on waiting. For a miracle.

 

Waiting for a miracle

In the project Waiting for a miracle, I searched for travelers waiting for a place of their own. A place where they can live in a house on wheels. A place where they can be themselves.

 

 

 

Publications

This project was exhibited at Museum Hilversum and in de grote kerk in Emmen, and was published in NRC Handelsblad, Hollandse Hoogte en Het Wiel.