Przemek: a Roma Thai boxer tackling understanding between communities



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Przemek Kierpacz and his family are Polish Roma who have been living in the UK for a number of years. Przemek is an advocate for Roma Support Group, a NGO promoting an understanding of Roma culture in the UK, as well as a professional Muay Thai boxer. He aims at representing the complexity and plurality of the Roma culture, maintaining that the Roma and non-Roma communities should engage in collaborations and mutual understanding.

«The only way to tackle this is more education and collaborations between Roma and non-Roma people through councillors and local government», says Przemek. «There’s no co-operation between Roma and non-Roma right now, but local organisations could collaborate and work with Roma organisations and communities. For example, ten years of good work with the Roma community can be destroyed in an second via negative media coverage.»

Przemek is a body of work, by UnFrame photographer Artur Conka, that will be shown at Autograph ABP’s gallery in Rivington Place on 10th and 11th April 2015, among other as part of Open Generation, a project grown out of debates around immigration and free movement, developed with Migrant Rights Network, and funded by the European Commission, aiming at prompting young UK voters to express their views and expectations on contemporary society, ahead of the May 2015 elections.

Autograph ABP is a photography charity working internationally to explore issues in regards to race, representation and human rights, raising awareness through exhibitions, publishing and devising a series of learning opportunities for education institutions, young people, community groups and the general public.

London, United Kingdom, March 9, 2015

Mandatory credit: Artur Conka / UnFrame