Delaine Le Bas - Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding

Delaine Le Bas - Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding
Date 7th Jun - 13th Oct 2024 Price Free - Drop-in - no ticket required Location Tramway

CLOSED Mondays and Tuesdays 
Open Wednesday - Friday 12 noon to 5pm
Saturday 12 noon to 6pm
Sundays 12 noon to 5pm

*Delaine Le Bas In Conversation*
Saturday 5 October, 3pm - 4.40pm
In the closing weeks of her exhibition, Delaine joins our curator Claire Jackson for an in-person conversation. Join us for this free, unticketed event.


Delainia: 17071965 Unfolding is an exhibition of work by artist Delaine Le Bas (1965) presented within an expansive and layered installation. Delaine’s objects, environments, textiles, costumes and performances exist at the intersection of the personal and the political, aligning her experiences as a Romani person with perspectives on land, movement, gender, and discrimination.  

Across the exhibition, Delaine evokes forms of social and psychological commentary through the recurrent use of texts, the reactivation of personal and archival ephemera, and symbols from classical mythology and popular culture. The installations are populated by a cast of extraordinary figures such as goddesses, visionaries and witches, applying a feminist lens to narratives of both emancipation and domination. 

Tramway was previously the Glasgow site of To Gypsyland (2013), a travelling research project by Delaine and collaborator Barby Asante that explored Romani, Gypsy and Traveller presence in cities across the UK. In the intertwining of elements from past projects with new figures and narratives, Delainia reflects the ongoing address in the work of the mythologisation and demonisation of Romani, Gypsy and Traveller peoples in the UK and Europe. These concerns are amplified within present-day contexts of housing crisis, border control, forced displacement and environmental breakdown. Delaine’s work activates and reclaims space for new rituals and imaginaries of resistance against historical and contemporary environments of hostility.  

A co-commission between Tramway and Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art 

ACCESS
It is our aim to make Tramway as accessible as possible for all our visitors. Download our Gallery Visitor Pack with this link. A hard copy of this pack is also available from our Box Office Reception desk on request.


All images (above and below):
Delaine Le Bas, Delainia: 17071965 (Unfolding), installation view, Tramway, 2024. Photos by Keith Hunter.


Delaine Le Bas introduces her exhibition (9 minutes 41 seconds). Videography - Nat McGowan

Exhibition essay

Download an essay which gives a more in-depth look at Delaine Le Bas' exhibition, Delainia 17071965 Unfolding. This is a PDF document